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•>"■- 







The Liberty Bell 



The Story of the 
Liberty Bell 



^By WAYNE WHIPPLE 

Author The Story of the American Flag, 
The Story of the White House, Etc. 



ILLUSTRATED 



PHILADELPHIA 
HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY 



/I. 



5 



CoPYEiGHT, 1910, BY Howard E. Altemus 



ICI.A2685 15 /. 



Introductory 



/ c/ 



p 



^^ ]p*^ROCLAIM Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabit- 
ants thereof/' is the legend moulded around the Liberty 
Bell. This inscription is from the twenty-fifth chapter of 
Leviticus, as part of the directions given by Jehovah for the 
celebration of the year of jubilee, and the very next words to it in the 
Bible are: 

' ' It shall be a jubilee unto you ; and ye shall return every man unto his 
pc^:ession. " 

For Liberty is the ' ' possession ' ' of every man, woman and child. 
The Story of the Liberty Bell is the story of Liberty. It is a history 
of thrills and throbs and tears. If the ancient Hebrew slaves had not 
made that immortal dash for liberty when the Egyptians pursuing them 
were drowned in the Eed Sea, there never would have been that 

tumult in the city, 
In the quaint old Quaker town, 

when the Liberty Bell rang in the ''year of jubilee," and rang out the 
glad tidings of freedom "throughout all the land unto all the inhabi- 
tants thereof." 

When ancient people conquered their enemies they made captives and 
slaves of them. They had very little idea of personal rights and still 
less of religious liberty. They seemed to think that those who did not 
believe as they did ought to be put to death if they were strong enough 
to kill them — unless they cared to make slaves of them or hold them for 
ransom. The ancients understood the right of Might, but they knew 
nothing of the might of Eight. 

Though the human race is counted to be six thousand years old, 
Liberty, as we know it, is but little more than one hundred years old. It 
is a hardy, slow growing shrub, which was just about to show its tender 
shoots when the wicked, cowardly King John of England granted the 
Magna Charta, or Great Charter, to the barons, because he was afraid 

5 



6 INTRODUCTORY 

of them, on a green meadow or mede, called Runnymede, near Windsor 
Castle, on June 15, 1215. This gave the English an inch along the line 
of Liberty and they and their children in America have made that inch 
a yard at least. 

The ' ' Compact ' ' which the Pilgrim Fathers signed in the Mayflower, 
just before the Landing of the Pilgrims, was a wee child of the Great 
Charter, but it soon grew to be the father of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. From this, in turn, descended Lincoln's Emancipation 
Proclamation, which at last gave freedom to all in the Great Republic, 
and made the keystone of ' ' that government of the people, by the people, 
for the people," which "shall not perish from the earth." 

So, if it had not been for many sacrifices, sufferings and martyrdoms 
among the devout and simple Swiss, the stalwart Irish, the knightly 
Poles, the brave English, the sturdy Dutch, the staunch Germans, the 
chivalric French, the valiant Italians, and many other heroes, who loved 
Liberty better than their own lives, the giant statue of ''Liberty Enlight- 
ening the World" would not now be standing in New York Harbor, 
the front doorway to the New World, nor, indeed, could 

The Star Spangled Banner yet wave 

O'er the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. 




THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



The Story of the Liberty Bell 



AN ANCIENT PEOPLE'S DASH FOR LIBERTY 

Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea! 
Jehovah has triumphed — his people ai'e free. 

— Thomas Moore. 

AFTER four hundred years of bitter bondage in Egypt, much 
worse than the negro slaves ever suffered in this country, a 
million Hebrew people, encouraged and led by Moses, who had 
been brought up in the Pharaoh's palace, came together one 
dark night, over three thousand years ago, and made a wonderful dash 
for liberty. Their cruel masters had recently suffered so much on their 
account that they were forced to say : 

' ' Go — leave, every one of you ! We have had so much trouble about 
you that we are glad to get rid of you." 

But the Egyptians soon found out how much they missed their Jewish 
servants and they said among themselves : 

"How foolish we were to let all our slaves go away!'* 

And the king, Pharaoh, began to think of all the great stone cities, 
pyramids, temples and tombs he was building of giant blocks of stone; 
he remembered how he had planned all these massive structures to have 
them inscribed so that people thousands of years to come would wonder 
and exclaim: 

"What magnificent monuments! What a great king that Pharaoh 
must have been!'* 

The Pharaoh saw all the unfinished buildings — and they never could 
be completed now that all those Hebrew slaves were gone — standing 
there, half done, through coming ages, a scorn and a by-word, making 
his neighbors and future nations laugh at him, saying: 

"Behold the half built monuments that foolish Pharaoh began to 
build and then let all his slaves go away and leave him." 

9 



10 THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 

The Pharaoh could not bear the thought. 

''I was weak and tender-hearted to let them otf, after all," he said 
to himself. ' ' I will go out after them now, and bring them all back. That 




Moses Before Pharaoh 



will be easy, for they are only a great mob of slaves without weapons 
or anything to fight with. ' ' 

The king also learned that, instead of going as directly as possible 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 11 

out of Egypt across the isthmus of Suez into Asia, the slaves had 
inarched toward th'e Red Sea. "What a foolish thing to do!" he 
thought. "The crazy mob has marched right into a trap." Yes, he 
would go right out after them and drive them back like a vast flock of 
sheep, and set them all to work again, lifting huge stones and finishing 
pryamids and temples. So, as it is told in the fourteenth chapter of 
Exodus, beginning with the sixth verse : 

He made ready his chariot, and he took his people with him, six hundred chosen 
chariots and all the chariots of Egypt, and captains over every one of them, . . . and 
he pursued after the children of Israel, and the children of Israel went out with a 
high hand. 

But the Egyptians pursued after them, all the horses and chariots of Pharaoh, and 
his horsemen, and his army, and overtook them encamping by the sea. 

When the runaway slaves saw that they were shut in between the sea 
in front of them, and Pharaoh 's army, infantry, cavalry and all, clatter- 
ing away behind them, they were terribly frightened, as they had a right 
to be. They began to ask Moses sarcastic questions, like : 

' ' What was the use of getting us out here and making matters worse ? ' ' 
"Didn't we tell you you would get us into deeper trouble than ever 
when you teased us to run away?" "Was it because there were no 
graves in Egypt that you fooled us into coming out here to be murdered 
in the wilderness?" 

While the poor, frightened people were screaming "We told you so!" 
"We all knew just how this would come out!" "Just as we expected!" 
and so on, the Egyptians, "horse, foot and dragoons," came thunder- 
ing nearer and nearer. 

Moses, instead of being angry or disgusted with the scared and trem- 
bling slaves, held up his hand, making a sign for silence. Then he said, 
in loud but gentle tones : 

Fear not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will show to you 
to-day : for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to-day, ye shall see them again no more 
forever. The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace. 

And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and the Lord caused the sea to go 
back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters 
were divided. And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry 
ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand and on their left. 



12 THE STORY OF THE LIBEETY BELL 

And the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them to the midst of the sea, even all 
Pharaoh's hoi-ses, his chariots, and his horsemen. 

The sluTering Israelites hurried across on a sand bar, while "all the 
king's horses and all the king's men" followed hard after them, not 
seeing, in the darkness, that they were really running on the bottom of 
the Eed Sea. The Pharaoh and his anny evidently thought Egyptian 
masters could follow wherever their Hebrew slaves could go. They 
were playing a game of "follow the leader" on a grand scale. 

Over three thousand years after that awful night the great Xapoleon 
was in Egypt with a brave French army, marching along the shore of 
the Eed Sea. "A strong east wind" was blowing again as it did long 
ago, while the Eg^'ptian army was marching in about the same place, 
chasing the host of Hebrew slaves. But some one discovered that 
Xapoleon and his army were walking on a bar in the sandy bed of the 
sea. A signal was given for the men to "double quick," and the French 
aiTny had barely got out and up on the shore when the wind, which had 
held the water back, suddenly changed and the sea came rushing and 
foaming across the very path on which they had just been marching. 
It was a hairbreadth escape. As they saw the waves tmnbling and 
frothing over their line of march, those brave men turned pale, and 
Xapoleon remarked to one of his staff : 

•"That is what happened to the Egyptian army thirty centuries ago." 

Xapoleon was right; for as soon as the last of the Hebrew slaves 
hastened up the shore on the farther side of the arm of the sea the wind 
changed and Pharaoh and his army were engulfed and drowned in the 
midst of the Eed Sea. 

When all the people saw how they had been saved and how all their 
cruel and terrible taskmasters were drowned, their fears and complaints 
were turned to rejoicing. Moses, who was a poet and musician, com- 
posed a song describing the miraculous event. And his sister Miriam, 
the older sister who had watched over him while he was a little baby in 
the ark of bulrushes in the edge of the river Xile, joined in the grand 
responsive sei'vice. Miriam was a woman now. She led the thousands 
of women in the great concert chorus. 




MiBTAM's Song of Triumph 



13 



14 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



HOW IRELAND LOST ITS LIBERTY 

She's the most distressful country that ever you have seen, 

For they're hanging men and vpomen there for the vpearin' of the gi'een. 

DERMOT McMORROUGH, the Prince or Chief of Leinster, 
was the Judas who betrayed Ireland. It was in the twelfth 
century. He had been so cruel and wicked that he had to be 
driven from the island. He found refuge in England. He 
knew he was despised by his own people, so in his own fierce hatred he 
devised a devilish scheme of revenge. It is doubtful if Dermot real- 
ized all he was doing when he induced Henry the Second of England 
to come over and try to conquer Ireland. Neither did Judas Iscariot 
know what an awful thing he was doing when he betrayed his Lord. 




Invasion op Britain by the Eomans 



Before the coming of the English, Ireland was the most favored 
country in the world. While the savage Goths and Huns were running 
wild over Europe, and during the Dark Ages that followed their bar- 
barities, ancient Erin shone like an emerald safely surrounded by a glit- 
tering sea of sapphire, the fortunate Island of the Saints. The Roman 
legions, when they conquered savage Britain before the time of Christ, 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 15 

never reached the Emerald Isle. It was a land flowing with milk and 
honey. There was plenty for all. The people lived in ease and quiet. 
When the English came, no serpents, toads, frogs or reptiles of any kind 
were found in the green fields or bogs. Only once a frog was discov- 
ered in Wexford, and the bearded natives came from many miles around 
to gaze in astonishment upon the strange looking creature. A green 
and living frog had never been seen in Ireland before. While the crowd 
was dumbly gazing at the little monster, as it seemed to them, Donald, 
King of Ossory, began to wail and beat his head in deep grief. Then he 
uttered this prophecy : 

''That reptile is the bearer of doleful news to Erin." 

Donald's prediction was soon fulfilled, for the English came within 
two years. 

A story is still told among the Irish people how St. Patrick drove 
the snakes out of the Emerald Isle. While a lad, Patrick had been car- 
ried off by a band of Picts from his home near the wall of Severus in 
Roman Britain. His father was a magistrate. Patrick, as his name 
implies, was of patrician birth. Those of more noble rank among the 
Romans were called patricians. The noble young Patrick became a 
slave. He played on a harp to while away the quiet hours. After six 
years of faithful service Patrick was set free. He was allowed to go 
home to his family, who had given him up for dead. As he was of a 
devout and thoughtful turn, Patrick prepared himself in Brittany to 
become a priest. During his vigils he had a vision sucli as St. Paul 
saw before he went to i^reach the gospel in Europe. He saw some one 
making signs to him to come over and preach and teach the people of 
Ireland. In the year 432, he obeyed, going as a minister and friend to 
the very hills where, as a slave, he had cared for his master's sheep. 
The people received him gladly. He taught them how terribly wrong 
it was for them to sacrifice their little babies as they still did, sometimes, 
in their ' ' Valley of Slaughter, ' ' thinking that by taking the lives of their 
little infants they were pleasing the horrible gods they believed in and 
feared. For the Christian religion had not then made much headway 
in the world and nearly all the people everywhere knew nothing of the 
Bible and the Church and all the things that have since made the world 
much better and happier. 

St. Patrick soon preached to the Irish assembled as a nation on the 



16 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



hill of Tara. His word was received in honest and good hearts. Be- 
sides leading the big, bearded sons of Erin away from their ancient 
superstitions, he founded schools, colleges and monasteries. Then Erin 
became the leader in Christianity, education and refinement. Centu- 
ries before Alfred the Saxon founded Oxford University, the university 
of Armagh flourished, and men came from all parts of the civilized 

world to study there — seven thousand at 
a time. A hundred schools were scat- 
tered over the beautiful green island. 
Irish missionaries were sent to ancient 
England, Scotland, France and other 
parts of Europe, carrying the gospel to 
the heathen, Irish teachers founded 
schools and monasteries in Europe, light- 
ing the lamp of knowledge for the Dark 
Ages. When Charlemagne wished to 
found colleges to better establish his 
great empire he sent for Irish scholars 
to be professors in them. The Irish 
Church, in simple grandeur, faithfully 
carried on the work of converting 
the neighboring tribes and nations 
from pagan barbarism. When Europe 
emerged from the gloom of ignorance 
and superstition it was Ireland that led 
the way out. 

Such was the state of the Island of the 
Saints when Dermot McMorrough, burn- 
ing with hatred for his clan and tribe, 
went to King Henry the Second of En- 
gland and betrayed the whole country in 
order to avenge himself on his own kith and kin. When Henry, with five 
hundred Norman knights and two thousand soldiers, crossed the Channel 
and landed near Waterford on October 18, 1172, her brave people were 
doomed. They fought heroically and suffered extreme cruelties. Henry 
commanded his soldiers to put out the eyes of all their men prisoners and 
cut off the noses of the women. So great were the cruelties practised 




An Early Norman King 




Henry the Second and the Barons 



18 THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 

then, in time of war, that this order did not strike people as very strange. 
It made the Irish giants the more desperate, for they would rather meet 
death in battle than be tortured after defeat and drag out their miser- 
able lives in slavery, dungeons and sightlessness. To the Normans it 
was no more a crime to murder an Irishman than to kill a dog. Their 
priests granted speedy absolution to men who came in red-handed from 
the murder of a son of Erin. 

The heroic struggles of Roderic O'Connor, king of all Ireland, and 
his loyal subjects, fighting for home and Church and Liberty, were of 
no avail, Henry gave their lands to his Norman knights. One, named 
DeLacy, alone received eight hundred thousand acres for his share in 
the destruction. So Ireland, formerly the seat of learning for all Eu- 
rope, was in a few centuries reduced to abject poverty and ignorance. 
The "pure religion and undefiled" of St. Patrick gave way to super- 
stitious forms and rites. * 

To conquer completely the lovely island required centuries of 
harshness and cruelty. There was another "conquest of Ireland" 
in Elizabeth's reign, four hundred years later. All around the 
great colleges of Armagh and Cashel, where ten thousands of students 
resorted at once, a thousand years ago, many people are now unable 
to read. 

Patriots and heroes like Grattan, Emmet and O'Connell have fought 
and suffered for the sake of the beautiful island and her devoted and 
oppressed people. The bards of Ireland can sing no more the songs they 
used to sing when their poetry and music were the envy of Europe. Her 
lovely lakes and mountains resound no more with the melodies of Erin. 
Yet the old songs with their deep pathos are heard in foreign lands. 
They appeal to the heart of humanity, and are full of promise that the 
Emerald Isle shall yet be free. Her noble sons in America and other 
far countries are fervently loyal to "the old sod." As the ancient 
Hebrews in exile sang of Zion, so the men and women of Ireland are 
crooning to their children of their beloved country. 

The very songs of Erin with their heart-appealing pathos, and the 
love and loyalty of her sons shall yet endow her with the fulness of 
freedom she enjoyed a thousand years ago, Thomas Moore, the great- 
est of all the poets of Ireland, has told the story of the by-gone glories 
of his native land in that simple and familiar song : 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 19 

The harp tliat once through Tara's halls 

The soul of music shed, 
Nov/ hangs as mute on Tara's walls ( 

As if that soul were fled. 
So sleeps the pride of former days, 

So gloi'v's thrill is o'er. 
And hearts that once beat high for praise 

Now feel that pulse )io more. 

No more to chiefs aiid ladies bright 

The harp of Tara swells. 
The chord alone, that breaks at night, 

Its tale of ruin tells. 
Thus Freedom now so seldom waives. 

The only throb she gives 
Is when some heart indignant breaks 

To show that still she lives. 



20 THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 

THE PRICE THE BRAVE SWISS PAID FOR LIBERTY 

Avenge, Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones 
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold. 

IT seems strange that the very people who enjoyed the greatest free- 
dom in ancient days lost their precious liberties during the hard 
struggle and changes of later centuries. The Jews, the chosen 
people of Jehovah, have suffered persecutions and exile for nearly 
two thousand years. The brilliant and cultivated Greeks, whose mental 
powers made them masters of the known world several centuries before 
Christ, later suffered for centuries the rude and cruel rule of the half 
civilized Turks. After many struggles against Turkish tyranny, the 
Greeks were aided by other nations in their revolution of 1821, and 
gained a certain degree of independence. The monarchs of Europe then 
selected a king for them. The present king of Greece was Prince George 
of Denmark, the brother of Queen Alexandra of England. 

The Armenians, also, are said to have founded the earliest Christian 
Church that still exists, and have preserved their simple faith without 
the forms that have gone to make up the rich rituals of the Greek and 
Roman Catholic Churches. These natives of the land where Noah's 
ark rested are still suffering great persecutions from the brutal Turks, 
who are worshipers of Mahomet and who have a deep and abiding hatred 
of Christians. The daily newspapers often give long and painful ac- 
counts showing how the Armenians are being massacred by the terrible 
Turks. 

About the only ancient people still free are the Waldenses or Vaudois, 
who still live in the mountain fastnesses of that part of Switzerland 
which looks down upon the sunny fields of Italy. They dwell up among 
the fields of ice, called glaciers, from which great avalanches often slide 
down the mountains, carrying destruction in their paths. Though the 
three valleys of the Vaudois scarcely measure sixteen miles square, 
they have been the scenes of valiant combats and hideous persecutions 
for nearly a thousand years. The heroic conduct of Leonidas at the 
pass of Thermopylae, or Horatius at the Roman bridge, has been re- 
peated again and again and outdone by brave men, and women, too, 
among these simple Swiss. Several times almost all the Vaudois per- 



THE STOEY OFV THE LIBERTY BELL 



21 



ished, and the few who were deft were dragged away from their icy 
fields and dizzy caves and, scattered over Europe. But these few and 
their children and children's children remained loyal to their simple 
faith and longing for their desolated land and homes in the mountain- 
tops of Switzerland. The story of their sufferings is too terrible to tell 
in detail — ^how they were burned, maimed and hurled over the Alpine 
cliffs, all because they were true and faithful to their own pure and un- 




How Arnold op Winkelried "Made Way for Liberty" 



defiled religion, which, they believed, came to them direct from the 
apostles and early Christians who had 'fled to them in their mountain 
wilds to escape the horrible persecutions of the Roman emperors. 

It was the vindictive people and the; cruel times before the dawning 
of Liberty that made, men so violent toward all those who were brave 
enough to think for themselves and to believe differently from all their 
neighbors. The people of' Piedmont, early in the seventeenth century, 
were guilty of the most inhuman butchery of their harmless neighbors, 



22 THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 

in the quiet little villages nestling in the mountain ravines of Switzer- 
land. The world, even in those cruel days, stood aghast at the atrocity 
with which the Vaudois had been treated. John Milton, author of 
'* Paradise Lost," one of the greatest poems in the English language, 
wrote a poem On the Late Massacre in Piedmont of which this is part: 

Avenge, Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones 

Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold; 

Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old, 

When all our fathers worshiped stocks and stones, 
Forget not: in thy book record their groans 

Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold 

Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled 

Mother with infant down the rocks. 

It is impossible for us to understand to-day why those good, modest, 
kind and harmless mountaineers aroused such rage and hatred among 
the powerful nations around them as to make even devout members of 
the Christian Church throw helpless Vaudois mothers and their inno- 
cent babies over the cliffs. Their terrible story is only hinted at here 
to show those who now enjoy the blessings of Liberty why they ought to 
appreciate their privileges more and more. We who were born in this 
''sweet land of Liberty" cannot appreciate the marvelous mercy of free- 
dom so truly as those who have come to our shores from Russia, Italy or 
some foreign country where such liberty is never allowed. We do not 
realize the full value of a blessing until we have to do without it. You 
never know how good a little cold water tastes until you have been where 
you could not get a drink of water for a long time and are very, very 
thirsty. People used to hunger and thirst for Liberty so much that they 
were willing to give their lives in order that others might enjoy it. 

In our glorious Twentieth Century since the birth of Christ we are 
wholly unable to comprehend how even the best educated people looked 
upon their neighbors' "beliefs^ a thousand or even a hundred years ago. 
To-day, if those around us don't go to the same Church we attend, or if 
they don't go to any Church at all, we don't think that is our affair. 
We know, without even thinking much about it, that they have a right to 
think and act as they please, so long as they don't interfere with the 
rights of others. Hundreds of years ago — not so long as that — a man 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



23 



who thought for himself, in religious matters at least, was looked upon 
as either crazy or an outlaw. He was a "freethinker," and instead of 
admiring a man who could think for himself, as we do, they considered 
that a man who could think independently was a terrible kind of being, 
a man to be afraid of! 
One reason for this 
general feeling against 
one who thought dif- 
ferently from all his 
neighbors was because 
the Church was be- 
lieved to have the right 
to bring up and edu- 
cate its children in its 
own way. When a 
child was wilful and 
wayward his body had 
to be punished "to 
save his soul." Also 
the Church and State 
were bound closely 
together. A Russian 
had to worship in the 
Greek Church ; in 
Rome they had to "do 
as the Romans do;" 
in Germany it was the 
Lutheran Church. The 
law of the country re- 
quired the people of 
that country to attend 
the State Church. Not 
to do this was to be a 
law breaker and one must be punished for breaking the law. In Eng- 
land the Church kept changing. For many centuries it was the Roman 
Catholic Church, and all who worshiped otherwise had to suffer for it. 
Then, through what was called the English Reformation, it was the 




Vaudois Defending Their Liberty 



24 THE STORY OF THE LIBEETY BELL 

Church of England, of which the King of England was the head or 
presiding officer. The English Church persecuted the Roman Catholics 
and the Nonconformists, as they were called who did not believe in the 
English forms of worship and refused to '^ conform" to them. The 
Pilgrims who fled to America and landed on Pljonouth Rock were 
'* Puritans" and ''Nonconformists." But, after coming thousands of 
miles, across the ocean, for the sake of worshiping in the way they 
thought was right, even the Pilgrims persecuted, banished and hanged 
Baptists, Quakers, and others who did not think just as they did! 

So, old as the world is. Liberty is a new thing. It is a new way of 
thinking. This intolerance, or unwillingness to let others think and do 
as they pleased with their own affairs, was not confined to religious 
matters. Far from it. There has been a great change in people's no- 
tions of personal liberty, aside from the liberty of conscience and free- 
dom in thought. To show this it will be necessary to tell but one little 
story : 

About one hundred years ago a man in London, England, thought a 
high silk, or "stovepipe," hat would look well on him, so he had one 
made and started down street with it on. People in London had never 
seen a silk hat before, and they did not like it. If you saw a man wear- 
ing a strange looking hat that you thought was queer, you might laugh 
at it, but you would not think of such a thing as hurting the man for 
wearing it. But a hundred years ago people saw such things in an 
entirely different light. A mob soon gathered about the man wearing 
the silk hat. Men attacked him with their fists ; they kicked him ; they 
beat him with sticks ; screaming women joined in and threw stones and 
eggs at him; the crowd tore off his clothes and he barely escaped with 
his life. Of course they spoiled the hat. This was not done in fun, 
either — the mere sight of such a hat seemed to throw even respectable 
people into a violent rage. Times have greatly changed since then. 
People have been learning, slowly and painfully, the sublime science 
and lovely art of "minding their own business." It is the fashion now, 
at least in America, to attend to one's own affairs. 

Liberty has come into the world through the Christian Church, and 
it has grown just as fast as the people would let it. Liberty is the 
Golden Rule put in practice by all the people — that rule found in the 
twelfth verse of the seventh chapter of Matthew : '''■''^' ' 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



25 



Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so 
to them. 

About sixty years ago Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, called upon 
his neighbors to set the Vaudois free, and let them go back to their homes 
in the lofty Alpine valleys, and live there in the freedom their ancestors 
had enjoyed eight hundred years ago, when their liberties were snatched 
from them, or rather when they were torn from their liberties and their 
homes. There was joy among them all and in the cities of their most 
cruel persecutors. Everywhere were heard rejoicings over the return 
to home and happiness of ''our Vaudois brothers," to the "Alpine 
Church," and there were glad speeches on ''liberty of conscience" from 
the children of the very people who had tortured and murdered the 
Vaudois for believing in liberty and conscience. The city of Turin, from 
which armed men had gone forth to massacre their ' ' Vaudois brothers ' ' 
was now illuminated in their honor. There was a grand celebration 
with processions and banners and music. Cheer after cheer went up 
for the Vaudois and their path was strewn with flowers. All this from 
neighbors who had always plotted 
their destruction, astonished and 
gladdened the hearts of the simple 
mountain people. They breathed a 
prayer of thanksgiving and whis- 
pered in their hearts as they climbed 
up the rugged roads and crooked 
paths toward their old homes in the 
high hills, the old Scripture promise* 
that had sustained their faithful 
hearts through many trials : 

The ransomed of the Lord shall return, and 
come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy 
upon their heads : they shall obtain joy and 
gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee 
away. 

The Vaudois have gone home to 
stay. Nothing has happened in the 

sixty years to disturb their peace and a Scottish Highlander 




26 THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 




Gessler the Tyrant and His Hat 

happiness — because all the people of the Christian world have been 
learning the Golden Rule. This teaching applies to all the affairs of 
life, not to religious matters merely. For instance, all the people of 
Switzerland had a long, long struggle for Liberty. It would seem that 
hardy mountaineers can never be conquered. This was true of the 
Highlanders of Scotland as well as the Swiss. The Scottish High- 
landers were never ruled by the Romans who conquered England about 
the time of Christ, nor by the Saxons or Danes, nor by the Normans 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 27 

who came and subdued the Saxons, nor yet by the later kings of Great 
Britain and Ireland. 

The story of the struggles of all the Swiss for liberty is so well illus- 
trated by that of William Tell, who represents Switzerland, and Gessler 
the tyrant, who stands for Austria, that it will be well enough to repeat 
that familiar legend here. The story goes that Gessler, the Austrian 
governor, hung his hat up on a pole and commanded a company of Swiss 
to bow down before it, thus showing that they were Austrian subjects 
or slaves. William Tell, a big, brawny, brave man of Switzerland, 
stood bolt upright, scornfully refusing to bow his head. The Austrians 
threatened him, but that made no difference. They chained him in a 
prison cell, and came day after day to tell their Swiss prisoner that they 
would let him go free if he would only nod just a little bit to the hat on 
a pole. But it was of no use. Meanwhile Gessler had been told what a 
sure shot with the crossbow his brave prisoner was. So the tyrant 
sent word to Tell that if he would shoot an apple off his son's head at 
a hundred paces he would set him at liberty. Tell said he would try. 
His son Albert was a brave lad and willing to take the risk. He had 
seen his father shoot and had great confidence in such unerring aim. 

As for Gessler, he thought in his wicked, cruel heart that if the hand 
of the bold fellow who refused to bow to his hat should tremble just 
a little from fear of hurting his boy, the arrow would strike the lad in 
the forehead or, perhaps put out an eye. But Albert stood perfectly 
still, not the least afraid, while his father, with a stern eye and a steady 
aim, sent the arrow straight to the mark and split the apple right in 
halves. In the general relief and rejoicing, Gessler noticed that an 
arrow fell from under Tell's jacket. He asked what that other arrow 
was for. 

"For your heart if I had hurt my boy," answered William Tell, 
boldly. 

Then Gessler ordered that Tell should be bound again and taken across 
Lake Lucerne to a castle from which he could never escape. A sud- 
den storm came up and lashed the lake with such fury that Gessler was 
afraid of drowning, and commanded his men to unchain Tell to let him 
steer the boat to safety. Tell was a powerful and skilful boatman, and 
guiding the boat past a jutting rock, he sprang out upon it, and the boat 
sank with Gessler and his crew, drowning them all. 



28 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



THE GREAT CHARTER OF ENGLISH AND 
AMERICAN LIBERTY 

Thej^ that give up essential liberty to obtaiu a little temporary safety deserve neither 
liberty nor safety. 

— Benjamin Franklin. 

CRUEL as Henry the Second of England seemed to be to his 
enemies — especially to the Irish — he granted to his subjects 
many so-called liberties, renewing and adding to the chart- 
ers of Edward the Confessor and Henry the First, his 
grandfather. He did this, partly, to make friends with his people, 

for Henry was a French- 




subjects 



English 



The Landing of William of Normandt 



man and his 
were Anglo or 
Saxons. Henry was a 
great-grandson of William 
the Conqueror, who, as 
the Duke of Normandy, in 
the northern part of 
France, sailed across the 
narrow channel and con- 
quered the Anglo-Saxons 
under their king, Harold, 
at the battle of Hastings, 
in 1066. William the Con- 
queror thus became King 
William the First of Eng- 
land. He divided the con- 
quered country among his 
knights and men, who 
turned the Saxons out of 
their castles and good 
homes and made them 
till the farms they used 
to own. Thus the Nor- 
mans became the masters, 
and were called noblemen 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 29 

and "barons, while the Saxons had to do all the work as shepherds, 
farmers, mechanics, servants and even slaves. 

As King Henry was a Norman and could not understand the language 
of his subjects he granted them certain liberties (they were considered 
great liberties then), in order to make friends with the conquered Saxons 
who still felt resentful toward their foreign king. Henry's father was 
the Norman duke who had once stuck a spray of broom-plant in his hel- 
met for a plume so that his followers might know him in battle. The 
armor of the knights and nobles in battle all looked alike, so they had 
to have ensigns, pennants, sometimes coats with designs embroidered 
on them, to wear outside their armor to show who was inside the iron 
or steel coat of mail. These distinguishing coats or designs were called 
''coats of arms." Men often wore j)lumes of different colors and ar- 
ranged in special ways on their helmets, and they were called crests. 
So Henry's father seized a sprig of the plant they made brooms of, for 
his plume or crest, and they called him by the French name for that 
plant, or Plantagenet. So his son Henry the Second of England was 
called Henry Plantagenet, and Henry's son Richard was known as Rich- 
ard Plantagenet until they found a better name for him. 

Henry the Second was a big, strong, handsome, brave man, and well 
educated for his time. No one thought much of his having the captured 
Irishmen's eyes put out, and their women's noses cut off. If people 
thought much about it they considered it rather a funny thing to do, for 
he had beaten them in battle and they belonged to him to be his slaves 
or to do with them as he liked. So Henry marked them in that way, as 
a ranchman brands his cattle — to show that they belonged to him. They 
had queer notions in those times. For instance, Henry had a great 
friend, a priest named Thomas a Becket. He asked the pope to ap- 
point Becket Archbishop of Canterbury. But when Henry tried to 
make Becket do something which Becket did not think was right, and 
refused to do, a quarrel arose. This went on for years. One day in 
a fit of rage the king exclaimed : 

''Why don't some of the cowards living on me get rid of this insolent 
priest for me?" 

The king's expressed wish, in those days, was considered an order. 
Four knights who heard Henry's sneering remark rushed out from his 
presence, galloped away to Canterbury and murdered the archbishop 



30 THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 

at the foot of the altar. Then they fled the country and lived and died 
in the Holy Land to atone for their crime. As for King Henry, he was 
overcome when he heard what the knights had done. He said he did 
not intend to have Becket murdered. It was the result of an unguarded 
remark made while in a fit of anger. He walked barefoot to Canter- 
bury and had seventy monks there lash him over his bare shoulders 
with scourges to expiate his part of the crime. Then, in order to make 
up to the pope, who was at that time a great emperor, as well as the 
head of the Church, Henry began to conquer Ireland as a present to 
the Church. That is, to atone for one murder, which he claimed he 
never intended, Henry made himself guilty of ten thousand he did mean 
to commit, besides crippling, blinding, torturing and disfiguring thou- 
sands more! Henry did not see how ridiculous such an ''atonement" 
would look in the eye of Heaven, nor did anyone else, for that matter, 
in those cruel days, when the life of a common man did not count for 
much in the opinion of kings and nobles. Liberty has taught us to set 
the highest value upon human life, whether high or low in the social 
scale, rich or poor, educated or ignorant. In the days of Henry the 
Second a man did not seem to have a right to his own life if the king or 
some other rich and powerful man wished to take it from him. 

But Henry was obliged, against his will, to pay other penalties. His 
wife. Queen Eleanor, was an able but wicked woman. She and her sons 
fought against their father, the king. There were four of these sons, 
Henry, Geoffrey, Richard and John. To have his own sons revolt 
against him almost broke King Henry's heart. He defeated his wife 
and had her imprisoned. Henry and Geoffrey both died repenting of 
their evil conduct toward their father. John worked secretly against 
his father, but fawned upon him, pretending that he alone had remained 
true and loyal. But the king found John out before he died and left 
him no territory to rule over, so he was called John LacMand. He left 
the throne to Richard, who was a great, hearty, brave, reckless fellow, 
whom the French people called Richard Coeur de Lion, or Richard Heart 
of Lion. Richard was very fond of fighting and adventure, so he was 
anxious to go on a crusade to the Holy Land, to drive away the Saracens, 
who were Mahometans, and take possession of the sepulcher of the 
Saviour. Richard first went to London to be crowned, though he had 
but little use for the English people except to get money enough from 




The Murder of Thomas a Becket' 



31 



32 



THE STOEY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



them to pay the expenses of a large army to Palestine and back. Dur- 
ing the celebration of Richard's crowning, the crowds mobbed and ill 
treated the Jews. Richard claimed to be friendly with them, partly 

because he needed 
their money, but 
the people hated 
them. Whenever 
the king or a pow- 
e r f u 1 nobleman 
needed money for 
some special pur- 
pose he imprisoned 
a rich Jew and 
threatened to tor- 
ture and kill him 
to make him give 
up the amount of 
money required. 
The story of the 
nobles ' cruelty to 
the Jews is well 
told by Sir Walter 
Scott, in ' ' Ivan- 
hoe." They often 
tortured a wealthy 
Hebrew victim by 
laying him on a 
bed of glowing 
coals and keeping 
him there until the 
pain made him tell 
where his money 
was hidden. From 
this custom has come the phrase, ''haul him over the coals," when 
a severe reproof is referred to. A modern slang term for the same 
idea is ''a roast." 

Richard went off on the Crusade, leaving his mean, wicked, and cruel 




Put Into a Dungeon and Tortured 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 33 

brother John to reign in his place while he was away. John also ex- 
torted money from the Jews, and did whatever he could to undermine 
his brother Richard during his long absence. Their older brother 
Geoffrey had left a son Arthur, only a lad, whose eyes John ordered 
put out. But even the jailers could not bear to hurt the lad, he was so 
good and kind. It is said that John came himself to the castle where 
Arthur was a prisoner, pretended he was going to take his nephew out 
to set him free, but stabbed him instead, tying weights to the boy 's body 
and throwing it into the river. No one ever knew just what became of 
Arthur, for if there were a boatman or any other witness to the crime, 
he would never dare to tell lest he lose his own life. There were a 
great many ''fatal secrets" in royal families then. Even a father or 
a brother who might be in the way, because he had a better right to be 
king than the man on the throne, disappeared suddenly and mysteri- 
ously. The people wondered, but no one asked foolish questions, for 
fear his curiosity would cost him his own life or liberty. There was a 
theory, too, of the "divine right" of kings. But the right of such a 
king as John was more devilish than divine. 

It was not an enviable lot to be a king or prince in those troublous 
times, nor at any time. Royal princes cannot have friends and play- 
mates as they please, nor can they even marry after their choice. In 
those days the princes, besides being restricted, were often imprisoned 
and put to death by wicked relatives to get them out of the way. 

Richard the Lion-Hearted spent many months trying to get possession 
of the Holy Sepulcher. The people loved him — he was so big and 
brave and strong and handsome ! Perhaps they loved him more because 
he was away all the time and because his brother John was trying dur- 
ing his absence to get the throne away from him. From boyhood John 
had always been wicked and mean. Richard went on the great pilgrim- 
age to the Holy Land to atone for his undutiful and traitorous conduct 
toward his father. But before he started away he had his mother re- 
leased from prison where his father had kept her shut up. Richard was 
a devoted lover and husband. The people of Cyprus were very rude to 
Berengaria, his betrothed, who was traveling toward the Holy Land 
in a separate ship which was wrecked on the coast of that island. Rich- 
ard, in great wrath, conquered Cyprus and made its king his prisoner. 
But he was very courteous to his royal captive, actually making chains 

J — The Story of the Liberty Bell. 



34 THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 

of silver for liim instead of loading him with links of iron. History 
tells us that the fallen king was very grateful for this great kindness. 
After marrying Berengaria, Richard went on to Palestine, where he 
became such a terror to the Saracens that Mahometan mothers used to 
frighten their children, when they were bad, by saying, ''King Richard 
will get you if you don 't mind, " as if Richard were an ogre or a goblin. 

While fighting around Acre and other walled cities of Palestine, Rich- 
ard of England took the lead of all the kings and knights in the Crusade. 
This made the King of France, the Duke of Austria and others jealous 
of him. One day the duke made a sneering, insulting remark about 
Richard's father. This made Richard so angry that he took hold of 
the duke and kicked him hard. If Richard, King of England, had 
killed Leopold, Duke of Austria, then and there, it might have been 
thought right and proper — but to kick him as if he were a poor villain, 
a moan slave! That was an insult never to be forgiven. Philip and 
Leopold went back to their own dominions and left Richard and his 
army to fight in the Holy Land alone. He met with some bad reverses, 
and began to hear stories from home that his brother John and Philip 
of France were conspiring against him. So he embarked for home and 
was shipwrecked. Alone and without money King Richard, disguised 
as a pilgrim, started to walk across Europe. While passing through 
Austria, the country of the duke he had kicked, a soldier who had been 
in Palestine recognized Richard and he was soon arrested and put in 
prison. Richard was too popular to be put to death, so he was held for 
a great ransom. 

King John, instead of trying to rescue his brother, was secretly glad he 
was locked up and out of the way. He began to arrange with Philip 
to divide Richard ^s kingdom. 

But there was a boy harper, named Blondel, to whom Richard had 
been kind, and he started out to find where his master was imprisoned. 
There was a rumor that Richard was in prison somewhere in Europe, 
but no one knew just where. Blondel went on foot through Europe 
playing for people and asking what prisoners were in the different 
" castles he passed. After months and months of weary searching the 
young minstrel sat down in despair by the wall of a great castle in 
Germany and began to play and sing a sad little song which no one knew 
but King Richard and himself. Imagine his surprise when a deep 




ElCHARD THE LlON HeARTED 



36 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



bass voice came floating down to liim from a little lofty window of the 
massive building, singing the second verse! The loyal lad had found 
King Richard the Lion-Hearted. He had to hurry back to England 
to tell some one who might be rich enough to purchase his master's 
freedom. Richard's mother, Queen Eleanor, and some English barons 

quietly raised the money 
required by the Emperor 
of Germany, who now 
claimed the English king as 
his jDrisoner, and Richard 
was set at liberty after 
eighteen weary months in 
prison. Wlien King Philip 
of France heard of Rich- 
ard's release he sent this 
message to John: 

"Take care of your- 
self, for the devil is un- 
chained. ' ' 

There were many who 
feared for their lives when 
Richard of the Lion-Heart 
came home, John went 
cringing before his brother, 
the real king, as he had al- 
ways done to his father. 
Richard was kind enough 
to forgive John, but he 
knew his j^ounger brother 
pretty well. 

' * I wish I may forget my 
brother's injuries as soon as he will forget my forgiveness." 

John behaved himself very meekly while his^ brother lived, and when 
Richard died, four years later, in 1199, after a reign of ten years, John 
became the actual king he had been plotting and scheming to be, for 
Richard left no children. It seems too bad that John should be king after 
all, but if Richard had lived, or if a better man had succeeded him, the 




Blondel Seeking Eichakd 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



37 



barons might not have been indignant and disgusted enough to demand 
their rights as they did ; or even if they had done so, another king might 
have refused to grant them. For John was a sneaking coward and he 
lost all his friends. Finally the barons (who were the nobles of the 
kingdom, descended from the knights who had helped John's great- 
great-grandfather, William the Conqueror) came in a body and de- 
manded their rights or threatened to choose another king in John's place. 
When they told him just what they must have — demands which seem 
moderate nowadays — the king was very angry and said he would never 
consent to anything of the kind. But the more John blustered the more 
firmly the barons behaved. He tried to put off a decision, hoping 
something might happen to prevent him from giving a final consent. 
The barons saw what he was at and demanded that the king set a day 
for his decision. They drew up a paper stating what they must have. 
They were in no mood to be put off or trifled with. They asked that 
there be courts established 
in different parts of the 
realm where trials could 
he held without long de- 
lays or great expense for 
traveling and following 
the king from place to 
place, where he happened 
to be. They demanded 
trial by jury, and that no 
one should be arrested or 
imprisoned without good 
reason being given. Also 
they required that the 
king consent to have a 
committee of twenty-four 
nobles to see that the 
things named in the docu- 
ment were done as agreed. 
The great day was June 
15, 1215, and the place, 
Runnymede, a broad, Norman and Saxon Arms 




38 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 




King John and the Barons 



green field by the Thames near Windsor, where the people had met 
before to present petitions to the king. The barons, calling themselves 
the "Army of God," came with great pomp and circumstance and 
pitched their tents there. The king and his retinue paraded out in fine 
style and confronted the "Army of God," as if two armies were en- 
camped over against each other. When John read the paper presented 
by the nobles and came to the item about the twenty-four barons to be 
chosen to see that he kept his agreement he was very angry and asked : 

"A^^iy not elect four-and-twenty over-lords to rule the realm in my 
place and be done with it ! " 

But the barons knew John would never keep his word if he were not 
compelled to do so by main force or fear of consequences, so they re- 
mained firm in this, as in every other demand. John was afraid they 
would do him some bodily injury, so he signed the document against his 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



39 



own will, hoping he might get out of keeping his agreement. The barons 
marched away with that great parchment with its big signs and seals, 
containing a new code of laws recognizing the rights of all classes of 
people, which is called the Magna Charta, or Great Charter. It was 
the dawning of English liberty, from which American liberties are 
derived. 

After the barons had gone, and John got safe back into his castle, 
he raved violently, gnashing his teeth, biting, striking, kicking, and 
swearing he would have his revenge on those cursed barons — just like 
a naughty, unruly, spoiled child. 










40 THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 

''THE NOBLE ARMY OF MARTYRS" FOR LIBERTY 

Ten thousand of the tried and true 
Have laid them down and died. 

IN our glorious Twentieth Century since the birth of Christ we are 
often told that we cannot be thankful enough that we live in 
America, the "sweet land of Liberty." We ought to be more 
thankful, if possible, that we live in an age of freedom, for only 
about a century ago Liberty was a poor, starving thing, even in the most 
enlightened countries. We are unable to understand now how the best 
educated people used to look upon their neighbors' religious beliefs 
and what a crime it was for a man to think for himself ! Now we ad- 
mire and honor an original thinker, but in olden times a "free-thinker" 
was a terror, capable of awful crimes against the soul. 

This was because the Christian Church took a firm stand as the Mother 
Church. All the children in Christendom were born into her care as 
children in a smaller family should be taken care of by their mother. 
It was a stern duty and responsibility which the Mother Church exer- 
cised in a strict, unyielding manner. As mothers in ancient Sparta 
made their children suffer hardships to make them tough and ready for 
the struggles and battles of life, so the Mother Church made thousands 
of her children suffer in their bodies for the sake of their souls and the 
souls of others. At least, that is what she meant to do. It was "heroic 
treatment," as the doctors now say when they are about to perform a 
necessary surgical operation. It brought out the real heroism of mil- 
lions of true and noble hearts. 

In Russia the State Church is the Greek Church; in Germany it is 
the Lutheran; in Spain and some other countries of Europe, it is the 
Roman Catholic Church ; in Holland, or the Netherlands, it is the Dutch 
Reformed; in England it is the Church of England; in Scotland, it is 
the Presbyterian Kirk ; in some countries it is no Church at all ; and in 
America it is "any Church you please." The Mother Church in Eng- 
land had been for nearly a thousand years the Roman Catholic Church. 
Then what was known as the English Reformation came about in the 
time of Henry the Eighth, and the religion was changed. Henry's 
daughter, Mary, was a staunch Catholic, and his other daughter, Eliza- 
beth, was just as staunch a Protestant. When the Roman Catholic 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 41 

Church was in control the people of the English Church were put out 
and persecuted; then, when the English Church came into power it 
persecuted the Roman Catholics. As has been shown, it was the people 
who were cruel, and the kings often used a Church as an excuse to carry 
out their own wicked schemes, as did Henry the Eighth. When the 
English Church became established it drove out not only the Catholics, 
but other Protestants who would not conform to the worship of the 
Church of which the king was the head. Among these "Nonconform- 



Executions by Puritans for Conscience's Sake 

ists" were the Pilgrims, who fled to America and landed on Plymouth 
Rock. And when these Pilgrims got their Church established they ban- 
ished the Baptists, hanged the Quakers and did considerable persecut- 
ing themselves. It was all due to the spirit of intolerance or unwilling- 
ness to allow other people to think and act for themselves. 

The next step, after the barons succeeded in frightening King John 
into signing the Great Charter, was for something to be done that would 
reach the people at once without waiting for Liberty to filter down to 
them from the king through the nobles, and so on. The common people 



42 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



have always been ignored. All we know of the real lives of the ancient 
people of Greece and Rome is what we have learned, almost by acci- 
dent, in reading about Alexander and Socrates, Caesar and Cicero, and 
a few great men like them. It is only recently that a great thinker has 
written "The History of the English People.'' Before that the great 
histories had mostly to do with the kings and nobles. In America we have 
learned to speak of the "sovereign people," whose will is law and whose 
united voice is "the voice of God," because millions of men, voting and 
acting in harmony, are more likely to decide and do that which is right 
than the mere will of one man acting for and by himself. So the Ameri- 
can people are sovereigns instead of the "vulgar herd," or "the 
masses," as they are often called in countries where one man is the 
sovereign. A man spoke once to President Lincoln about "the com- 
mon people, ' ' and Lincoln said, ' ' God must love the common people for 
he made so many of them." Abraham Lincoln was proudest of being 
one of the common people and gladdest to be able to do them a great 
deal of good. 

So, when a great idea or a great question gets out among the people 
and they keep thinking about it while at their work or sitting by their 
firesides in the long evenings, something is sure to come of it. When 
all the people have a chance to settle a great question it is sure to be 

settled right, though it may take a 
hundred or even a thousand years to 
do it. The "every-day people" who 
did the work and had the best right 
to live in old England (though the 
nobles did not think so) began to get 
at the truth when John Wyclif, mas- 
ter at Oxford, the great English 
university, took to writing and 
preaching against some of the wrongs 
that were then practised and taught 
by religious leaders who, he thought, 
were misleading the people. Among 
other things, he taught that the 
Church and the State ought to be kept 
John Wyclif separate? 




THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



43 



They ought to have been glad to have such a thinker and teacher as 
that at a great seat of learning like Oxford University, then five hun- 
dred years old. But no, the leaders in learning were indignant with 
Doctor Wyclif for criticising and writing against their ideas before 
the people, and they made him give up his position as Master of Balliol 
and leave Oxford. So he took charge of a little church at Lutterworth 
and began to do about the most important work that a man ever ac- 
complished — he translated the Bible 
into the language of the people. The 
different Saxon tribes spoke separate 
dialects when the Normans came 
over to England, about three hun- 
dred years before this. Then the 
Normans spoke French, and the 
Bible and all the other books were 
written or printed with the pen in 
Latin. It took years to print a single 
Bible by hand, and such a book cost 
as much as a great estate, so, very 
few, even among the nobles, owned 
Bibles. The Church did not believe 
in having the sacred book read by 
the people, because there is so much 
in it that needed to be explained to 
them. The few Bibles that were 
found in the churches had to be 
chained to the desks to prevent their 
being stolen. If the people had had 
the privilege of reading the chained 
Latin Bibles they could not have understood them. 

During the three centuries between the conquering of Saxon England 
and the days of Wyclif, the Saxons had been brought together in a bond 
of sympathy, because of their Norman masters. Also kings of England 
claimed the throne of France and this brought on a war that lasted so 
long that it was called the Hundred Years' War, and the English kings, 
knights and nobles got into the habit of hating everything French. Be- 
sides, the kings of England found that they must learn the language 




A Knight of the 13th Century 



44 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



spoken by their subjects in order to get money from them in the form 
of grants, or gifts, and taxes and revenues to carry on their extensive 
wars, crusades and maintain their expensive courts. So when 
Doctor Wyclif translated the Bible for all the people to read he really 
brought them together to speak and understand the same language and 
practically melted the Anglo-Saxon clans and tribes together into the 
great English People. That was a great achievement, but Wyclif did 
more than that. He set the people to reading and thinking and talking, 
and a little bird of Liberty was let out of its cage to grow strong, expand 

its wings and fly to the sun, the 
source of light. That bird of free- 
dom is the American Eagle. 

Wyclif is called "the Morning 
Star of the Reformation" and the 
''Father of English Prose." He 
was really the father of the Eng- 
lish language. He opened the way 
for Chaucer, ''the Father of Eng- 
lish Poetry," whose long poem, 
"The Canterbury Tales," is still 
read with interest and amusement. 
It shows that people were already 
beginning to think for themselves. 
Chaucer set them laughing at 
monks, friars, ' ' pardoners, ' ' 
women, and even kings and queens, 
and told of their weaknesses and 
wrongdoings in such a way that 
even the king or the Church could 
not take offense, but if a priest or monk had said such things in 
the pulpit he would have been tried for thinking and speaking evil of 
those in authority, and he would probably have been burned at the stake, 
as poor John Huss was, away off in Bohemia, just about the time the 
people of England were chuckling over the "Canterbury Tales." This 
long poem was a description of a pilgrimage to Canterbury to pray at 
the shrine of St. Thomas, the Thomas a Becket who was killed about 
two hundred years before. Becket was called Saint Thomas because he 




Chaucek as a Pilgrim to Canterbury 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 45 

was made a martyr for doing what lie thought was right without fear 
or favor from the king. It became the custom, after King Henry had 
walked barefoot to Becket's tomb, for people to make pilgrimages to 
the martyred Thomas's shrine. Chaucer told of an imaginary pilgrim- 
age, as though several members of the party were relating the ' ' Canter- 
bury Tales." These few lines will give you an idea of the style he 
employed: 

A monk there was of skill and mastery proud, 
A manly man — to be an abbot able — 
, And many a noble horse had he in stable. 

I saw his large sleeves trimmed above the hand 
With fur — the finest in the land. 
His head, was bald and shone like polished glass, 
And so his face, as it had been anoint, 
While he was very fat and in good point. 
Shining his boots; his horse right proud to see, 
A prelate proud, majestic, grand was he; 
He was not pale, as a poor pining ghost ; 
A fat goose loved he best of any roast. 

Of course the louder all this ridicule made the people laugh the angrier 
it made the monks and friars, so angry that they wanted to kill Chaucer, 
and he fled to Holland. When he came back he found that many of the 
people had laughed themselves out of the Church and were rapidly 
joining the Lollards, as those followers of Wyclif were called who refused 
to have anything to do with the priests and friars. Chaucer had to go 
away a second time. It was only through the saving sense of humor 
of those in authority in the Church that kept the others back, so that 
good, jolly old Geoffrey Chaucer was permitted to die a natural death 
in the year fourteen hundred, probably without any idea of all the good 
his quaint, queer poetry had done for the cause of thought and conscience. 

But John Huss suffered a very different fate. A great scholar from 
Bohemia, who had been at Oxford, and heard Doctor Wyclif preach, 
carried Wyclif 's books home to his house in Prague, Bohemia. This 
learned professor was Jerome of Prague. In this way, John Huss, a de- 
vout, eloquent and learned man came to read Wyclif 's books, and found 
deep truth in them. He began to preach against the wrongs committed 
by many high in authority in the Church. He and Jerome were terribly 



46 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 




Huss Before the Council at Constance 



in earnest. They did not laugh nor did the people of Bohemia. Husg 
was summoned to appear before the great Council of Constance, Switzer- 
land. There Sigismund, Emperor of Germany, presided and there were' 
thousands of prelates and nobles in attendance. Sigismund promised 
John Huss a safe-conduct, that is, he agreed to be responsible for Huss's 
safety — but they imprisoned Huss and brought him out, gave him a 
mock trial and condemned him. All John Huss had done was to be- 
lieve the same things Wyclif had taught. He did not say half as hard 
things as Chaucer did in his poem, but they burned him at the stake 
in the public square at Constance, in the presence of a great crowd of 
people, on July 16, 1415, while great piles of Wyclif 's and Huss's 
books were also burning. His friend Jerome stood up for him and 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 47 

afterward paid for his bravery by being chained to a stake and 
burned. 

It is told that during his so-called trial John Huss turned and looked 
at Emperor Sigismund, who had promised the safe-conduct. But the 
Emperor's pass or ticket of safe-conduct was taken from Huss and he 
was kept in prison for months. On the final day of that trial, 
when John Huss saw that some of the men he had accused of lead- 
ing wicked lives were determined to have him put to death, for 
they shouted at him when he tried to speak in his own defense, he 
stood up calmly and spoke distinctly, turning to Emperor Sigismund, 
saying : 

* ' I came to this Council of my own free-will, with a safe-conduct from 
the emperor. I came in full confidence that no violence should be done 
me, and that I might prove my innocence. ' ' 

Then, while John Huss stood gazing steadily, the emperor knew he 
had spoken the truth, and that if he had given the order he could have 
commanded thousands of men to defend Huss. The emperor's face 
turned scarlet and the thousands in that great Council of Constance 
beheld the blush of shame on the cheek of Sigismund, Emperor of 
Germany. 

One hundred and five years after this, when another German emperor, 
Charles the Fifth, at another great council, was asked why he did not 
break his word and violate the safe-conduct he had given Martin Luthef, 
he said: 

''I should not like to blush as Sigismund blushed before John Huss.'^ 

Martin Luther was not burned at the stake. Great things for Liberty 
had happened in the century after the deaths of Huss and Jerome of 
Prague. Savonarola had preached in words of fire against the wicked- 
ness of Lorenzo de' Medici and other great sinners in Florence, Italy. 
"The common people heard him gladly" for a time, but revenge came 
swift and sure. The ashes of Savonarola were thrown into the river 
Arno, in Italy, as the ashes of Huss and Jerome of Prague had been 
cast into the Rhine and the ashes of Wyclif were scattered upon the waters 
of the Avon, which flows through Stratford, the birthplace of Shakes- 
peare. 

But a greater event than the giving up of their lives in the holy cause 
of liberty by such men as Huss, Jerome and Savonarola came to pass 



48 THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 

in the latter half of the fifteenth century. At first it was kept a great 
secret, but it became known in this singular manner : 

A stranger came to the palace of Charles the Seventh, King of France, 
with a package which he would not open for anyone but the king. At 
last he was admitted and carefully undid the precious bundle, taking out 
a beautiful copy of the Holy Bible, printed on j^archment, richly bound 
and fastened with strong clasps. The king was delighted with the 
regularity of the letters. It looked as though the monk who printed all 
that by hand must have taken the greatest pains. Every Bible cost a 
fortune in those days. The king asked the price of it. "Seven hun- 
dred and fifty crowns" (nearly one thousand dollars), said the man. 
The king was glad to buy it so cheap, for he really expected to pay much 
more for it. He gave the man the money and let him go. Shortly 
after this transaction the king received a call from the archbishop, to 
whom he said, eagerly: 

''I have a beautiful Bible to show you — the most perfect I have ever 
seen. The letters are done so evenly and well that I do not see what made 
the man sell it so cheaply." 

The king showed the great, handsome volume to the archbishop, and 
to his astonishment that prelate sent out to his carriage for a package, 
opened it and placed another copy of the book beside the king's. The 
two Bibles were exactly alike ! Such a thing was never heard of before. 
The two men were perplexed. What could it mean? Every page was 
the same, every letter, every point. They were all so true and even, too, 
and did not show the marks of a pen. Was it a miracle, or witchcraft? 
No one but a wizard could do such a marvelous thing. They soon 
found out that there were other Bibles sold cheap — only a thousand 
dollars apiece ! Some thought it must have been done by the devil him- 
self. Others said the devil would not be out selling Bibles. But the 
archbishop said the devil sometimes took the form of "an angel of light." 
The king and the prelate ordered the matter traced out. The man was 
caught selling other Bibles just like the ones he had sold in France. 
They found that the books all came from the house of a Doctor Faust 
of Strasburg, in Germany, near the French boundary. This was hun- 
dreds of years before Goethe wrote his great drama in which he repre- 
sented a certain Doctor Faust as having sold himself to the devil. This 
real Dr. John Faust did not want to tell how those Bibles were made 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



49 



for fear lie could not sell so many, or at such high prices. But people 

were suspicious and frightened. They thought he was a wizard, or a 

man who, like a witch, had sold himself to the Evil One to do the works 

of darkness or magic, like flying on i broomstick at night. If anything 

was done that people did not understand, they thought the devil was at 

the bottom of it. Some 

men landed, hundreds of 

years ago, near Lyons, 

in the south of France, 

in a flying machine, and 

had a narrow escape 

from being put to death 

for witchcraft, for 

witches were the only 

13 e o p 1 e they thought 

could fly. 

This very King of 
France, who was puzzled 
because many Bibles 
were just alike, had been 
placed on the throne 
through the wonderful 
leadership of a young 
country girl, named Joan 
of Arc, who could neither 
read nor write, but who 
heard, or thought she 
heard, voices telling her 
to lead the army of 
France and drive out 
the English who had 
taken possession of many 
French cities, claiming 
king. The people, the 




Joan of Arc 



that France belonged to the English 
soldiers and King Charles all believed the 
girl was inspired of heaven. This gave everyone so much confidence, 
that the victory was half won before Joan and the French army reached 
Orleans, for the idea that a higher power was with the ''Maid of Or- 

4— The Story of the Liberty Bell. 



50 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



leans," as they called her, inspired the English soldiers with fear. When 
Joan of Arc saw her beloved king, Charles the Seventh, crowned, she 
wanted to go back to her humble country home and mind the sheep, as 
she was doing when she heard the voices telling her to go and save 
France. But King Charles and the army begged her to go on driving 
the English out of France. She was persuaded to do this, though she 
felt that the voice of her king was not the same as the voice of God. 
She was half-hearted, and some of the very men who begged her to keep 
on as their commander, deserted her when she was surrounded by the 
enemy, and the English finally made her their prisoner. They took the 
poor girl and told her she had done all the wonderful things by magic, 
and tortured her to make her confess that she was a witch and that it 
was the devil who had told her by whispers in her ear just how to go to 
work to beat them. Joan could only tell what the voices said, and 
while she was in the most excruciating pain she would say ''yes" to any 
question they asked her, just to make them ston their terrible tortures. 
Then they said: "She has confessed that she sold her soul to the devil. 




Joan of Arc Before the Tribunal at Rouen 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



51 



She is a witch, she says so herself. She must be burned." And they 
took poor innocent young Joan of Arc out on a beautiful May day, in 
1431, chained her to a stone post in the market place of Rouen, and 
burned her to death. 

For thousands of years everybody believed in • witchcraft. Moses 

had said, as the Bible tells us, "Thou 
shalt not suffer a witch to live." There- 
fore, millions of innocent men, and even 
old women and young children, have been 
put to death or burned as witches. Even 
the best educated people believed in this 
superstition. Sir Matthew Hale, one of 
the greatest men and a just judge, con- 
demned men and women to death in the 
highest court of England, two hundred 
years after Joan of Arc's time, for being 
in league with the devil, bewitching cows 
so they would not give milk, preventing 
butter from forming in the churn, and 
such common things as that. In this 
country Dr. Increase Mather, the 
president of Harvard University, only two hundred years ago, 
wrote a book on witchcraft, which was thought to have much to do with 
the hanging of the witches at Salem, Massachusetts. His son. Dr. Cot- 
ton Mather, though so often referred to as having been to blame for 
that delusion which was common at the time, really had nothing what- 
ever to do with it. When Cotton Mather was in favor of vaccination, 
to prevent smallpox, ignorant people thought "inoculation," as they 
called it, was of the devil, and they threw a hand grenade, or small 
bomb, into his window, trying to kill him. Whenever anything was 
done that the people did not understand, they were frightened and whis- 
pered, "Witchcraft!" 

We left Charles the Seventh of France, the archbishop and others 

gravely debating whether it was through witchcraft that so many Bibles 

looked just alike. As they threatened to try Dr. John Faust, of Stras- 

'burg, and burn him also, he was forced to explain how the books were 

made. He told them that they had not been printed with the pen, by 




Cotton Mather 



52 THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 

hand, but stamped with little blocks of wood or lead. This is the way 
the art of printing started : 

A jolly Dutchman, named Laurenz Koster in Holland, the country 
of canals and windmills, used to whittle out toys and blocks for the chil- 
dren. While doing this he happened to think he could make wooden 
dies such as are now used in stamping letters and designs in butter and 
wax. He found he could make up words, letter by letter, tie them to- 
gether and print them. Laurenz Koster was the first person to put 
wooden type together to make words, though seals and stamps had been 
used for thousands of years. The Chinese are said to have known the 
art of printing a thousand or more years ago, but they used single blocks, 
printing with them, but making a separate impression for each char- 
acter, somewhat as a grocer prints his price cards to-day, with separate 
rubber types. Koster did a little printing in a small way, but he died, 
leaving his precious secret with his apprentice, a young German named 
John Gutenberg, who improved upon Koster 's invention by casting 
lead type in moulds, instead of carving it on wood as Koster did. Young 
Gutenberg needed money to perfect his invention, so Dr. John Faust, 
a good, wealthy neighbor in Strasburg, supplied the funds for this and 
to enable him to print a large number of Bibles. These were stored 
with Dr. Faust and he saw to the marketing of the precious books. This 
explains how the king's detectives traced the Bible salesman to Dr. 
Faust 's house. This, in brief, is the story Dr. Faust had to tell to prove 
that he was not guilty of witchcraft, and that the devil was not a silent 
partner in that firm of printers. In all printing offices in England and 
America to-day they call the boy apprentice the printer's *' devil." 
The reason Dr. Faust did not like to tell how his Bibles were printed 
was because he was afraid he could not sell them if it were known 
that they were not written with a pen in the old way, at least he thought 
the people would not pay such large prices when they knew how they 
were made. It is a good thing the art of printing was not long kept a 
secret. 

About twenty-five years after King Charles bought his first printed 
Bible, a man named William Caxton, of England, on a business trip to 
Holland, saw the type and how it was used. He found the process so 
interesting and profitable that, when he went back to London, he opened' 
a printing place in a chapel of Westminster Abbey. The first book ever 



54 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



printed in English was not the Bible, but "The Game and Playe of 
Chesse," for the English people were then nearly as much interested in 
chess as the Americans are in baseball to-day. There is a fine statue 
of Gutenburg, as the inventor of printing, in Strasburg, Germany. But 
should not the highest honor be paid to good Laurenz Koster, who really 
invented printing while carving on wooden blocks the names of little 
children 1 

Thus printing came into common use in Germany just in time to save 
Martin Luther from, being burned alive — for the people could get printed 
Bibles and read them for themselves, and they became such great friends 
to Luther that the men in authority were afraid to treat him as others 
had treated John Huss, Savonarola, and thousands of the people called 
Lollards. 

Besides, Martin Luther's influential friends stood by him to the last. 

Emperor Charles the 
Fifth, though not known 
as a good or honorable 
monarch, held sacred the 
safe-conduct promised to 
Luther when that re- 
former, as he is now called, 
came to the Diet, or Con- 
ference, at the city of 
Worms in Germany, to 
answer for his teaching 
and preaching and writ- 
ing, just as Huss was sum- 
moned to the Council of 
Constance. Dr. Luther 
had been a professor in a 
German university. He 
was a singer and com- 
poser. As he journeyed 
to the town of Worms for 
trial, crowds were waiting 
for hours in the streets 
MARTIN LuTHEE and on the housetops 




56 THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 

to see the great Doctor Luther pass — the man who opposed the 
selling of indulgences, and other wicked things done by men under the 
cloak or protection of the Church. One of his hymns is now familiar 
because it is sung in English as well as in German, and in the great 
French opera, The Huguenots. It begins: 

A mighty fortress is our God, 
A bulwark never failing. 

The streets of Worms were so crowded that the emperor's officers 
could not conduct Doctor Luther to the council hall by the usual way, 
and he had to be led through private passages and gardens. In that 
spacious, solemn council chamber, the emperor and the nobles of his 
court were assembled with the high dignitaries of the Catholic Church. 
The Diet was presided over by Archbishop Treves, representing Leo 
the Tenth, one of the greatest potentates that ever ruled the Christian 
world from Rome. There was a deathlike stillness when the arch- 
bishop, in the rich regalia of the Church, pointing to a pile of books and 
pamphlets on a table before him, asked the humble man in plain garb, 
standing before him : 

"Martin Luther, did you write these books?" 

Luther stood looking at them. He had seen on his way from Witten- 
berg, notices posted up, condemning all his writings and warning every- 
one who read them to a fate worse than death, of excommunication, 
which meant eternal punishment. He believed when he came to this 
Council, that he was coming to his own death. His friends, in tears, im- 
plored him not to go to Worms, or he would suffer the fate of John Huss. 
His great friend, the Elector, or King of Saxony, had sent his chancel- 
lor to entreat Luther "not to enter a town where his death was decided." 
The answer which Luther returned was simply this, "I will go though as 
many devils aim at me as there are tiles on the roofs of the houses. ' ' 

While Martin Luther stood considering how best to reply, the silent, 
suspense was almost sickening. After he had looked the books over he 
said, quietly, that as far as he knew, he had written them all. 

Then the Archbishop asked him in a harsh, threatening voice: 

"Will you take back what you have written!" 

Doctor Luther calmly began the speech he had been deliberating. It 
would mean life or death to him — death most likely. He went on quietly 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



57 



explaining why be had been forced to write and to preach as be bad 
done. They let him proceed. They dared not shout at him and call 
him names as some bad done to John Huss. What made this great dif- 
ference! Printing had been discovered. The people had begun in 
Germany to read and to think for themselves. So Martin Luther was 
permitted to go on. It was not a long speech. It ended with these 
words : 

* ' Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen. ' ' 
Many of the nobles and prelates present had urged the Emperor 
Charles the Fifth to break his word with Luther and give him over to 
them to be tortured and put to death. But the young emperor, seeing 

how the peoi^le all over Germany 
loved their good friend, Doctor 
Luther, agreed that it would not do 
to violate his safe-conduct, but as 
soon as Luther had reached his 
home at Wittenberg in safety, they 
might arrest him and do as they 
pleased with him. 

On his way back from the Diet, 
while passing along a lonely road in 
the depths of a dense forest, a band 
of men dashed up on horseback 
and surrounded Doctor Luther. 
Throwing a cloak over him, they 
compelled him to mount a horse 
they had brought for him to ride. 
Luther did not know who they were nor where they were taking him. 
His captors rode on with him in silence. Luther asked no questions. He 
thought his enemies had him in their power at last. No one spoke a 
word all that long day. After nightfall they came to a high, steep hill 
on top of which the towers of a huge castle loomed, gloomy and threat- 
ening, above them. ''This is to be my prison, then," thought Luther. 
A great gate swung open and his captors led him inside. They con- 
ducted him to a little upper room, where clothing such as a knight wore 
was laid out for him. 

''Put those on," they said to him, ''You are a knight, now, and 




Seal of Charles V 



58 THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 

your name is George. You will have to let your hair and beard grow. 
No one must know who you are. ' ' 

It was all very strange. Though Martin Luther was puzzled he was 
also very weary. He threw himself upon the bed and slept soundly. 
In the morning he arose and looked out through the little grated window. 
Trees, nothing but trees. He was evidently in the heart of a deep for- 
est — but where! Though a prisoner he was treated kindly. What did 
it all mean' Months passed. The world heard nothing of Martin 
Luther. He had mysteriously disappeared. His friends thought he 
had been seized secretly and put to death. 

Yet Martin Luther was among friends. Frederick, Elector of Sax- 
ony, saw that his friend's life was now in greatest danger. Knowing 
that the great Doctor Luther would never fly or retreat of his own ac- 
cord, he sent men to make Luther a prisoner to save him from a worse 
fate. Luther's enemies thought he had fled the country and hoped they 
had seen and heard the last of that troublesome, outspoken reformer. 

The place in which Frederick of Saxony kept Luther confined for ten 
long months was the castle of Wartburg. As Doctor Wyclif had done 
at Lutterworth two centuries earlier, when driven out of Oxford, Luther 
began in this castle the greatest work of his life, the translation of the 
Bible into the language which people in all parts of Germany could 
read and understand. He took the greatest pains in making this trans- 
lation. When he came to the passages about the sacrifices he watched 
a butcher killing sheep and other animals and learned all that he could 
about them. While working on the twenty-first chapter of the Revela- 
tion he consulted a jeweler about the different precious stones there 
described. He put forth every effort to make the Bible so plain and 
simple that it could be understood by the mother in the house, by the 
children in the streets and by "the common man in the market." As 
Wyclif 's translation had brought all the Anglo-Saxons together into the 
English people, so Luther's united all Germany into one Fatherland, 
and made the present German Empire possible. Grand as this achieve- 
ment proved to be it was by no means the greatest thing Luther did, 
for the service he rendered the human race in the sacred cause of Liberty 
can never be estimated. As all the people read their Bibles they "looked 
into the perfect law of liberty." 

Nearly four hundred years have passed since Martin Luther worked 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



59 



day and night, in the great castle prison of Wartburg, in the heart of a 
gloomy forest of Germany. In that time four hundred million Bibles 
have been published — more than a million a year ! Thanks to such men 
as Wyclif, Huss, Jerome, Savonarola and Koster, Gutenberg, Caxton 
and the '* noble army of martyrs" and heroes '*of whom the world was 
not worthy, ' ' the printing-presses of Christendom are sending forth more 
and more Bibles every year; more and more good books are being 
brought within the reach of all the people, and Liberty is spreading 
faster than ever. 




Early English Printing Office 



60 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



SAH^ING THE "SEA OF DARKNESS" FOR 
LIBERTY'S SAKE 

WHEN you are asked what shape the world is, you promptly 
answer that it is "round like an apple or an orange." 
Any child can say this now, but a few hundred years ago, 
for a man to say so in earnest would have cost him his 
life, or at least his liberty. Christopher Columbus, the son of a poor 
wool-comber of Genoa, Italy, somehow got the idea into his head that 
the world is round. He went from country to country trying to get a 
chance to prove his theory by sailing around the globe. How people 
laughed and made fun of poor demented Christopher Columbus ! They 
thought he was foolish or he would have been burned at the stake. The 

Inquisition had not 
been started or 
they might have 
arrested Columbus 
and put him on the 
rack, and stretched 
him there until his 
bones began to 
come apart to 
make him say "I 
take it all back, the 
world isn't round, 
it's flat, yes, flat as 
a pancake!" That 
is the way they did 
with Galileo, an 
Italian philosopher, 
a" hundred years 
later, who made 
m a n y important 
discoveries. Galileo 
really invented the 
telescope and dis- 
covered stars 




^./<^w^~'""'^^=^V- 



Columbus Before Ferdinand and Isabella 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



61 



never before seen by human eyes. When he was an old man he was 
called to answer questions in the Inquisition. The Church did not like 
new discoveries for fear they would contradict the Bible. 

They told Galileo he must take back all that he had written and taught 
about the earth revolving around the sun. He was an old man. They 
threatened to torture him if he didn't say, "I was wrong; the sun re- 
volves around the earth." 

Poor old Galileo! He 
knew it wouldn't make 
any difference to the sun 
or to the earth and it 
might make a great deal 
of difference to an old 
man like him, so he took 
it all back. He knelt, as 
they ordered him, and re- 
peated the seven peniten- 
tial psalms every little 
while for the sin of saying 
' ' the earth moves. ' ' There 
is a story that after 
Galileo read his speech 
denying it all he said 
softly to himself: "And 
yet it moves ! ' ' The world 
has moved since then in 
another way. It has 
moved out of darkness 
into the sunlight of Lib- 
erty. 

Thus Columbus might 
have been tortured for 
saying the world is round, 
only they thought he was 
half crazy on the subject. 
They did not hurt his body 
for this belief, but they 




Columbus in Youth 



62 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



did torture him as children too often torture each other and even 
strangers by making fun of them. 

'*Ho, ho!" a girl would say when Columbus went by. ''There goes 
the poor, silly man that thinks the world is round. How do the people 
on the under side stick on, then? — He! he! he!" 

''Yes," a boy would add, "and he says he can go east by sailing west — 
going one way by starting in the opposite direction! Ho! ho! ho! 
Ain't that rich, though!" 

Columbus had gone from country to country and no one believed or 
cared enough about 
the matter to help 
him until Queen Isa- 
bella of Spain, 
touched by his earn- 
est wish to convert 
the heathen, said she 
would see that he 
had a few ships 
even if she had to 
pledge her crown 
and other jewels to 
pay for them. It is 
strange that the 
queen who had most 
to do with starting 
the Inquisition, and 
the queen who drove 
the Jews out of 
Spain, was the same 
queen who was so 
good and generous 
to Columbus, and 
enabled him to prove 
that one could go 
east by sailing 
west. Queen Isa- 
bella was not nat- Columbus and the Egg 




THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



63 



urally cruel. She only thought as St. Paul did, when he was persecuting 
the early Christians — that she was doing God service. 

When Columbus and his three little ships went ''sailing out into the 
west" from Spain, the crews that manned them were criminals let out of 
prisons, for no free sailors would ship with Columbus on such a danger- 
ous voyage. The western sea, which we now call the Atlantic Ocean, was 
then known as the "Sea of Darkness." Sailors and nearly everybody 




The "Santa Maria," the "Pinta" and the "Nina' = 



else believed that no one would ever come back alive from that unknown 
sea. Some thought it was the home of terrible sea monsters waiting to 
devour all who came their way. Most people believed that a ship going 
westward beyond certain bounds would be engulfed in a great mael- 
strom, or whirlpool, and be sucked down through the earth, or caught 
by a swift current that would rush it over the edge of the world as a small 
boat is carried over Niagara Falls, and go down, down forever into the 
bottomless abyss. So it required more than mere heroism for Columbus 



64 



THE STOEY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



to start out across that unknown sea. The men who had been made to 
sail the ships against their wills came to him every day to beg him to 
turn back before it was eternally too late, for they expected, hour by 

hour, to be caught 
in some irresisti- 
ble current and 
whirled to swift 
destruction. They 
sometimes went 
down on their 
knees at his feet, 
with tears stream- 
ing down their 
bronzed faces, en- 
treating him not to 
drag them down 
to death before 
their time. Colum- 
bus said all he 
could to encourage 
them and to divert 
their minds. The 
queen had offered 
quite a fortune, as 
a prize to the first 
man who should 
discover land be- 
yond the western 
sea, and Columbus 
added to it an ex- 
tra gift of a vel- 
vet jacket. Yet 
the poor sailors 
from the Spanish jails did not believe anyone would find any- 
thing in that direction but sure death. When they could not 
persuade 'the Admiral'' as Columbus was now called, to let 
them turn back, they schemed to tie him. hand and foot, and throw 




Columbus Quieting the Grumblers 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



65 



him into the "Sea of Darkness." Columbus discovered the plot and, 
with the help of the faithful leaders on each of the three little ships, 
kept the prows pointing westward. After ten long, anxious weeks 
Columbus himself first sighted land. He had faith that he would find 
it if he kept going long enough. Those who believe are the ones who do 
things. The men who meant to murder Columbus were the first to 
acknowledge that he was right and that they were all wrong. When 
Admiral Columbus came back to Spain he was the greatest hero in the 
world. Those who had snickered and made fun of him now considered 
it an honor to tell their children and grandchildren if ' ' Admiral Colum- 
bus ' ' happened to smile on them in a passing parade in his honor. The 
king and queen did him honor and gave him wealth and titles which his 
descendants, the Dukes of Veragua, have held to this day. The highest 
honor of all was that he, by his faithfulness in following the call of duty, 
gave the New World to the Old. The World's Fair, four hundred 
years later, the grandest international exposition ever given, was all in 
honor of the man whose neighbors ' children called ' ' crazy Christopher. ' ' 
It was because Spain tried to keep her great discovery secret that 
Columbus lost the honor of having the two continents of North and 
South America named North and South Columbia in memory of their 
discoverer. 

Try hard as she might, Spain could not hide the new world under a 
bushel. Other men soon sailed out across the western sea, and John 
and Sebastian Cabot and Amerigo 
Vespucci discovered the continents of 
North and South America before 
Columbus found his way beyond the 
outlying islands. King Henry VII 
of England paid the Cabot who 
first saw and landed on North 
America, ten pounds, or fifty dollars, 
for a new continent! The New 
World soon became a refuge for 
those who could not find Liberty in 
the Old. Sir Walter Raleigh, one 

of the noblest men that ever lived, y^^ ^ u^Y-'^'^'^^Efr-^ i* ''^' 
came to found a settlement on the Sir Walter Kaleigh 




5— Thf Story of the Liberty Bell. 



66 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



coast of North America, naming the region ''Virginia" in honor of 
Qneen Elizabeth of England. It was Walter Raleigh who spread his 
red velvet cloak over a muddy ])lace in the road for Queen Elizabeth 
to walk on, and thus save her dainty pearl-embroidered slippers from 

being soiled. Raleigh's 
colony did not last long, 
but he took back tobacco 
to England and potatoes, 
which were first found in 
America, to Ireland, 
where they have grown so 
well as to be called "Irish 
potatoes. ' ' The English ' 
used to call smoking 
"drinking" tobacco. 
Raleigh learned to smoke 
from the Indians and, 
after returning to Eng- 
land, he sat smoking one 
day in his room. A serv- 
ant thought his master 
was on fire and dashed a 
pail of cold water over 
him, drenching him from 
head to foot to put the fire 
out! 

Sir Walter Raleigh 
spent many years as a 
prisoner in the Tower 
of London because he 
was supposed to have opposed King James as king of I^lng- 
land. While confined in the Tower he wrote his "History of the 
World." The king released him on condition that he should com- 
mand an expedition to America, find a certain mine the king thought 
Raleigh knew about, and bring back a cargo of gold. Sir Walter had 
an unfortunate voyage, failed to find the gold-mine and returned empty 
handed to the king, who was so disappointed and angry that he ordered 




Death of Ealeigh 




PocAHANTAS Saves Captain John Smith 



07 



68 THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 

Raleigh taken back to the Tower and beheaded. The unfortunate man 
need not have returned to England at all, but his high sense of honor 
made him feel that he ought to report to the king. James did him the 
honor to allow him to have his head cut off on Tower Hill instead of be- 
ing hanged at Tyburn, like a common criminal ! When he was on the 
scaffold ready for execution, Raleigh felt the keen edge of the heads- 
man ^s ax and said, with a smile: 

' ' This is a sharp medicine, but it is a cure for all ills. ' ' 

Another Englishman who did a great deal for America was Captain 
John Smith. He came to America with a company of colonists led by 
Captain Newport. They named two capes, Charles and Henry, and a 
river James. A settlement was made and named Jamestown, in honor 
of the king. Some of the settlers refused to work. They considered 
labor undignified, if not degrading. Captain John Smith showed them 
that unless a man worked he should not eat. He had several encount- 
ers with the Indians. In one of these he was captured and carried into 
the presence of Powhatan, the head chief. He was condemned to death. 
Just as two stalwart braves had their war clubs uplifted ready to dash 
out his brains, the Indian chief's daughter, Pocahontas, rushed for- 
ward, threw herself upon the white prisoner's prostrate body and inter- 
ceded with her father, Powhatan, in Captain Smith's behalf. King 
Powhatan, as he was called, made a treaty with the white men, but after- 
wards consented to join in a conspiracy to put all the white men out of 
the way by murdering them. Pocahontas came secretly and gave Cap- 
tain Smith warning of the plot, and he was ready for the Indians when 
they came. The chief of the Pamunkeys detained Smith in a parley 
until he was surrounded by Indians. Captain Smith seized the chief 
by the hair and threatened to blow his brains out if he did not withdraw 
and call off his braves. 

Smith had many encounters with the savages and with mutinous 
white men. He forced the idle fortune seekers to work or starve, and 
had cold water poured down the necks of the men. He also made 
voyages along the coast and drew a map of New England. It was he 
who gave the name of Plymouth to the region afterward settled by 
the Pilgrims. It is said that slavery was introduced in this country by 
the bringing of negroes to Jamestown in 1619. 

Captain John Smith was badly burned and injured by an explosion 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 69 

of gunpowder. He soon returned to England and was honored by 
King James, whose son, Prince Charles, named the northern part of 
what was then called Virginia, "New England." 

The colonies which settled in New England came over for Liberty ^s 
sake. Pennsylvania and Maryland, were also established in the inter- 
est of religious freedom. The former was settled by Quakers from 
England, and the latter by Roman Catholics driven out of the Virginia 
colony by Church of England people. The story of the settlement of 
Pl}^noutli is the most interesting of them all, because of the noble pur- 
pose of the people to be free to worship as they wished. When ''Good 
Queen Bess," or Elizabeth, queen of England, died, she left the throne 
to King James, the foolish, obstinate king of Scotland. He was very 
narrow-minded, bigoted and mean. He thought he was very clever and 
wise, when everyone could see how stupid and silly he was, but no one 
dared or cared to tell him when he was in the wrong. To offend him 
cost a man's life or liberty. 

Perhaps the silliest thing of all that King James tried to do was his 
attempt to make all the people of England worship in the Church of 
England, of which he was the head. Those who refused to ''conform" 
were called Nonconformists. Many of these desired a purer religion, 
so they were called Puritans. The Puritans, instead of trying to purify 
the Church, or make it better, separated themselves from it, so they 
were called Separatists. That anyone should have the courage to 
wish to think or do anything but what King James ordered and just the 
way he ordered it, seemed to enrage him beyond measure. Several hun- 
dred ministers in different iDarts of the kingdom, who earnestly desired 
to make the Church and the people better, presented a humble petition 
to the king to be allowed to explain their ideas to him. James gra- 
ciously consented to hear them. He invited bishops and prelates of the 
Church — his Church, for he was the father of the State Church — and 
after taxing all the people to support his Church he used what he wanted 
of the Church money himself ! Why not ! Was he not the Head of the 
Church? When those hundreds of Nonconformist ministers came to 
their "hearing, ' ' it was they, not the king, who did the listening, for when 
they began to tell him why they wanted to talk with him, he stopped 
them and snarled at them through his nose, in his self-satisfied way: 

"I will have one doctrine, one discipline, one religion. I alone will 



^0 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



decide. 1 will mafce you conform or 1 will harry you out of the land, 
or else do worse — hang you!" 

Then he rubbed his hands with glee and chuckled to the bishops whom 

he had invited 
there to see the 
fun, ' ' I peppered 
them soundly, did 
I not?" 

There was a de- 
vout little meeting 
at Scrooby, Eng- 
land, where sev- 
eral pious preach- 
ers expounded the 
Gospel in its sim- 
plicity, and taught 
the plain country 
people to live pure, 
upright lives. Thfe 
man who lived in 
the house where 
the meetings were 
held was William 
Brewster, an im- 
l)ortant man at the 
court of Elizabeth. 
He had seen the 
seamy side of high 
life and had settled 
down to use his in- 
fluence to hel]i to 
improve the condi- 
tion of the neigh- 
borhood. A youth of seventeen, named William Bradford, was 
another worshiper there. These (|uiet, law-abiding people were 
sorry to hear of the king's decision, for it meant that they 
must give up what they valued more than life — their liberty of 




Foolish, Obstinate King James the First 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 71 

conscience. The king went right to work to have the Nonconformists 
"clapt up in prison," as he expressed it. Wliere could they got It 
would be as bad for them in France and it would take years and cost 
a fortune to go to America. They must leave their comfortable homes 
and get out of England at once. In Holland the government and the 
people were kind and allowed peoijle to worship as they chose. Brew- 
ster and his neighbors had to go fifty miles to the seacoast in order to 
get a ship to take them to Holland. He arranged with a captain to 
carry them to Amsterdam. They sold their homes for all they could 
get, packed up and made the journey to Boston, England, at night. 
They were waiting on the quay, all readj^ to escape, when a constable 
with a band of the king's men came clattering down the cobblestone 
street and arrested them for trying to leave the country — after the king 
had driven them away ! The ship captain, who had agreed with William 
Brewster to take them to Holland, had informed on them instead. They 
were kept in prison six months and finally set free. Then Brewster 
tried again to take his faithful little band out of the country. This 
time he bargained with a Dutch shipmaster to meet them at a lonely 
spot on the English coast. They separated and went to the place of 
meeting. But the ship was not there as agreed. The men, women and 
children hid themselves along the shore the rest of the day and all night 
before the Dutch skipper arrived. In the morning the shivering, dis- 
couraged little company were glad to see the ship anchored off 
shore. They began to take the people and their goods on board in 
small boats. Some of the men and women were on the ship and some 
on land and working hard to transfer the rest of the families and 
goods when over the hills came a troop of armed police, sent by the 
bishop, and seized those who were still on shore, clubbing them, even 
the women, with their guns. The oaths of the officers and the shrieks 
of the women and children made such a commotion that the Dutch 
captain, fearing he might be arrested also, hoisted his anchor and sailed 
away. 

Young William Bradford was on board, and thus described the scene 
in his diary : 

''Pitiful it was to see the heavy care of these poor women — what 
weeping and crying on every side — some for their husbands carried 
away in the ship, others not knowing what should become of them and 



72 THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 

their little ones ; others melted in tears seeing their poor little ones hang- 
ing about them, crying for fear and quaking with cold." 

The little ship, instead of reaching Holland in a day or two, was 
caught in a gale and driven away to the coast of Norway. For seven 
days the fleeing passengers did not see the light of the sun or moon, and 
hourly expected to go to the bottom. It was fourteen days before they 
reached Amsterdam. 

As for the broken families left behind weeping bitterly on the shore, 
after fathers, husbands, wives and children had been carried off, they 
were put in prison again and kept there until government officials in 
London could be consulted. It was found that the bishop had no right 
to arrest them, so they were allowed to go — but where? They had no 
homes, their goods had been lost or destroyed. Of course, to-day such 
officials would have to pay the penalty of such wanton abuse and ill 
treatment. Even the king would now be made to suffer for such a tres- 
pass upon the rights of private citizens. King James was not made to 
suffer, but his son Charles, when he became king, was beheaded be- 
cause of his father's high-handed crimes against Liberty. Especially in 
royal families are the ''iniquities" of the fathers visited upon the chil- 
dren "unto the third and fourth generation." King James did great 
good in the cause of Liberty, by accident, as it were. He called together 
the Church and other dignitaries to tell them just what he would and 
would not allow in the way of worship, and the ''King James" trans- 
lation of the Bible was the outcome of it all. It is still known as the 
"Authorized Version." One has only to read its quaint and fulsome 
preface to see the difference between the way we look at that stupid, 
self-sufficient monarch and the way people had to see him then. Be- 
sides being king and a worse despot than the Czar of Russia dares to be 
now, he was the head of the English Church. But Providence over- 
ruled the greatest evils of those days to bring about the highest good 
in the world to future generations. 

After many weeks of discouragements which amounted almost to 
despair, the little group of Separatists was united in Amsterdam, Hol- 
land. Men who had owned landed estates at home were obliged to learn 
trades there to support themselves and their families. Though they 
had lost lands, homes, friends, early associations and been separated 
from all that they had learned to love, and were condemned to work 




Sailing of the " Mayflower" from Holland 



74 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



from early morning till late night at hard labor, all these things seemed 
no hardships to them because they had escaped the power of the king 
and bishops who had persecuted them in the name of the Christian re- 
ligion ! They worked on for many years, glad in the right to live their 
lives and worship God in the way they wished. 

Although the Dutch were kind and good to the English Nonconform- 
ists, their very liberties became the cause of fear. They were still loyal 
to their country and even to their unworthy king. They were English 
in spirit, in spite of all they had suffered at the hands of the English 
Church and State. They did not want their children to grow up to be 




Hudson's Ship the Half Mocn 



Dutch men and women. Besides, according to their strict ideas, the 
Dutch notions of religious liberty seemed too liberal entirely. They 
looked upon the Dutch manner of observing the Sabbath as loose and 
full of license. They could not acquire lands and homes of their own in 
Holland, so their weary, longing eyes turned toward the new country 
beyond the western seas. 

Henry Hudson, an Englishman in the employ of the Dutch East 
India Company, had returned, in the Half Moon, from the voyage in 
which he had discovered and named the Hudson river, telling of the 
rich lands to be found along that beautiful stream. The English 
Puritans in Holland thought that seemed to be an ideal place to settle. 



THE ISTOKY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



75 



iin!|[lll(l!llllll!!|llllll!llilili|l!il(l'miitiiiiniiiiiiii!i[iiiiiiiii'[i'i iimi 



They got together and, after much discussion, determined to go to New 
Amsterdam, where the Dutch were already settling, or farther south- 
ward to Virginia. They had hut little money, so they had to find 
men in England who would advance enough to enable them to hire 
one or more ships to make the voyage and help them build settle- 
ments and live for years in the new country before they could pay it 
back. When some one approached the king in their behalf he refused 
to grant them his permission to settle in America unless they would 
worship there in the forms he prescribed. It was after many years of 
toil, suffering and anxiety that, with the aid of a syndicate calling them- 
selves the "Gentlemen Ad- 
venturers," the Puritans of 
Holland were ready, in the 
summer of 1620, to sail for 
America. 

They sailed from the port 
of Delft Haven, Holland. 
Their beloved pastor, John 
Robinson, who had often 
preached at the home of 
William Brewster, at Scrooby, 
England, was now too old to m 
undertake so long a voyage. 
He bade them a fond good- 
by, prayed with them at the 
landing and gave them all his 
parting blessing. The peo- 
ple "wept sore" as they well knew they should "see his face no 
more. ' ' 

They sailed through the English Channel to Southampton and Plym- 
outh, where they were delayed and where others were added to their 
number. Among these were Myles Standish and Rose, his wife, John 
Alden, and the troublesome Billington family, which, as Bradford ex- 
pressed it in his diary, was "shuffled into their company." They now 
called themselves "Pilgrims," because they were wanderers in search 
of a home. It Avas a religious pilgrimage, though they were not in 
search of a shrine. It was an altar, a family altar, they sought — a 




Bible Brought Over in the ' ' IVIayflower ' ' 



76 THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 

place where they might worship God in the privacy of their homes and 
hearts as their consciences dictated. Not all the Pilgrims, however, 
were Puritans. Myles Standish had been brought up a Catholic, and 
the Billingtons were looked upon as hoodlums by the rest. 

They sailed away in the '* Mayflower" and the "Speedwell"; the 
latter was a small ship, only one-third the size of the "Mayflower," 
which was a clumsy little brig. The "Speedwell" didn't speed well at 
all. While creeping along the southern coast of England it sprung a 
leak, and both ships had to put back into Plymouth, England. After 
another delay the "Mayflower" sailed alone with one hundred passen- 
gers. There is no aristocracy in America. Thousands of people liv- 
ing in this country now, nearly three hundred years after the sailing 
of the ' ' Mayflower, ' ' trace their family line to the Pilgrims of Plymouth. 
It is a descent to be proud of, for those voyagers were true noblemen 
and heroes. That immortal sailing list remained the same, for though 
one man was washed overboard in a storm, a man child was born on 
board to take his place, so the "Mayflower" brought just as many im- 
migrants to America as emigrants from England. It was a crazy old 
tub, but no ship in all history can compare in beauty and loftiness of 
purpose and imagery with the ' ' Mayflower. ' ' 

The overloaded little craft had a stormy voyage. It came near split- 
ting in two, in a storm, and they had to tie a cable around it to hold it 
together. A storm drove them out of their course so that, instead of 
reaching the mouth of the Hudson, they found themselves off Cape 
Cod. Here they anchored and held a meeting in the cabin, at which 
the men signed a solemn "Compact" by which they were to be gov- 
erned. John Billington sneered at this agreement. He could not con- 
ceive of authority coming from anyone but the king. He declared that 
he would not be ruled by the others. He was a low-lived fellow. His 
wife had to be punished as a common scold and their son — the boy who, 
while x^laying with forbidden gunpowder, narrowly escaped blowing 
up the "Mayflower" — was the wayward, lawless lad who gave the col- 
onists a great deal of trouble. Once he got lost and Myles Standish 
and a band of men had to spend days in search of him. This Billington 
boy grew worse and worse and had to be hanged, years afterward, for 
murder. This was the first sentence of death ever executed in that 
.colony. 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 77 

This digression has been made to show how new and strange it was at 
that day for authority to come from anyone but the king, John Bil- 
lington boasted that they could not force him to abide by laws made by 
men among themselves, and he and his family learned, to their sorrow, 
the force of this new but wonderful Compact. They all solemnly signed 
as a mutual agreement that November day, in the stuffy cabin of the 
dirty little '* Mayflower, " their modest agreement, little thinking that 
it would take its place as one of the greatest documents in the world, 
beside the Magna Cliarta of English Liberty. It contained the seeds of 
the Great Republic. They were to be ruled by the majority, not by 
the king. From it came the Declaration of Independence, the Emanci- 
pation Proclamation and that *' government of the people, for the peo- 
ple and by the people" which "shall not perish from the earth." Here 
is the opening paragraph or preamble of the Pilgrims ' Compact : 

In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwritten, by these presents, solemnly 
and mutually, in the presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves to- 
gether into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of 
the aims aforesaid, and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute and form such just and equal 
laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most 
meet and convenient for the general good of the colony, unto which we promise all submission 
and obedience. 

Then they proceeded to elect John Carver their Governor. He died 
of something like a sunstroke the following April. He was an old man. 
The rest of the Pilgrims were young — none of them over forty — or they 
could never have endured the hardships and privations of that "long 
and dreary winter," followed by "the wasting of the famine and the 
burning of the fever. ' ' The drawing up and signing of their Compact* 
was of vastly more importance than even the "Landing of the Pil- 
grims," which did not take place until a month later, December 21, 1620. 
A more important "landing" was that of the Pilgrim Mothers, who 
went ashore at the end of Cape Cod and did nine weeks' washing, for 
they had been cooped up in that overcrowded little ship for sixty-three 
days. It must have been a great pleasure to them all to go ashore, even 
to do a huge washing like that. They did this on Monday, and Monday 
has been "washday" ever since. 

The Pilgrims began at once to build a few log cabins, living on board 
the "Mayflower," which had sailed up into the harbor of Pljniiouth, 



78 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



which had been visited and named by Captain Jolm Smith, several 
years before. They worked just as hard on the twenty-fifth, four days 
after the landing, as on any other day. They called Christmas a 
"papish hohday," so they considered it a sign of Liberty to be free to 
work on that day! Half of them died that first winter. At one timt, 
only a few were well enough to nurse all the rest, and they had to stop 
building houses for the living to dig graves for the dead. These they 
smoothed down level so tliat lurking Indians might not count them and 
find out how few white men were left. 

They built a log fort on top of the hill, for a church. Instead of- a 
bell they had four brass cannon mounted on its flat roof. They marched 
to church every Sunday, the men carrying their guns, which they stacked 




Indians Declaring War 



by the door during service. They kept a man on guard to give the 
alarm in case of a sudden attack by the red men. The Pilgrims had to 
watch as well as pray. They belonged to the ''church militant." They 
have often been criticised because they drove away those who did not 
believe as they did. It is true that the Puritans of Boston and Salem 
banished Roger Williams because he was a Baptist, and hanged Quak- 
ers and witches, but it must be remembered that the Puritans had come 
to America, at great sacrifice, to worship tJieir way, not every way. If 
they could have been satisfied with any kind of religion they would have 
stayed in Holland. If others did not like their faith and forms they 
were at liberty to go elsewhere and start a church of their own. That 
is what they had had to do. They would not do as King James did. 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



79 



but would let those who disagreed with them go iu peace though they 
could not conscientiously bid them God speed. 

When Governor Carver died, young William Bradford, who had 
joined the little company at Scrooby, England, when he was only seven- 
teen years old, was elected Governor. Bradford held that office for 
nearly forty years. The diary he had begun before he was nineteen, 
he kept for many years. His plain, quaint story of the settlement of 




They Had Come to Stay 



Plymouth '^ plantation" is now one of the most precious books in the 
world. Its return to Massachusetts by its owner in England was re- 
garded as a great event by and between England and America. All be- 
cause that Bradford boy tried to do that which was right, and put down, 
in plain and simple language, the daily happenings of his life, which was 
full of hardships, sorrows and, seemingly, commonplace items. 

When the ** Mayflower" started to England in the spring of 1621 an 



80 THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 

offer was made to carry back without charge any who wished to go 
"home," as the colonists always called England. But, although they 
had all been ill and hungry and sad, no one wanted to go. They had 
come to stay. They loved Liberty in a howling wilderness among 
savages better than to live amid "mansions and palaces" without free- 
dom. Hard as the life was in their new settlement, with its sufferings 
and privations, the cruel, demon-like Indians were better than foolish 
King James and his officers. The Pilgrims took a long stride toward 
Liberty when they landed on Plymouth Rock. 

Mrs. Hemans has well described their noble purpose in the following 
poem: 

THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS 

The breaking waves dasli'd high 

On a stern and rock-bound coast, 
And tlie woods against a stormy sky 

Their giant branches toss'd; 

And the heavy night hung dark, 

The hills and waters o'er, 
When a band of exiles moor'd their bark 

On the wild New England shore. 

Not as the conqueror comes, 

They, the true-hearted came; 
Not with the roll of the stirring drums. 

And the trumpet that sings of fame; 

Not as the flying come, 

In silence and in fear; — 
They shook the depths of the desert gloom 

With their hymns of lofty cheer. 

Amidst the storm they sang, 

And the stars heard and the sea; 
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang 

To the anthem of the free! 

The ocean eagle soar'd 

From his nest by the white wave's foam 
And the rocking pines of the forest roar'd — 

This was their welcome home! 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



81 



There were men with hoary hair 

Amidst that pilgrim band: — 
Wiiy had they came to wither there, 

Away from their childhood's land? 

There was woman's fearless eye, 

Lit by her deep love's truth; 
There was manhood's brow serenely high, 

And the fiery heart of youth. 

What sought they thus afar? 

Bright jewels of the mine? 
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war? — 

They sought a faith's pure shrine! 

Aye, call it holy ground. 

The soil where first they trod. 

They have left unstained, what there they found- 
Freedom to worship God. 




Watchixg the "Mayflower" Sail Away 



6— The Storv of the Liberty Bell. 



82 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



''LIBERTY AND UNION, ONE AND INSEPARABLE" 



Hereditary bondsmen ! Know ye not 
Who would be free themselves must strike the blow! 



w 



— Byron. 



HILE liberty of conscience had been borne in upon the Pil- 
grims and Puritans, they had much to learn about per- 
sonal rights. They 



were such firm be- 
lievers in ''total depravity" and 
"original sin" that they consid- 
ered the human heart "of all 
things desperately wicked." All 
who were jolly and happy were, to 
their way of thinking, on "the 
broad road to perdition." The 





The Culprit's Feet Were Thrust Through the Stocks 



New England Seal 

"Merry Mounters" of 
Boston were so gay as 
to shock their Puritan 
neighbors. To be 
light-hearted was to 
be considered light- 
headed or worse. It 
was the same way with 
the English Puritans. 
Macaulay wrote of 
them that they op- 
posed bear-baiting, not 
because it hurt the 
bear but because this 
form of sport gave 
pleasure to the onlook- 
ers. The tender mer- 
cies of the Puritans 
were cruel. It must 
have been an awful 
thing to be a child in 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



83 



a Puritan family. All occasions were solemn. If a boy played 
he was trifling on the brink of eternity. This terrible strictness 
gave rise to the "Blue Laws," in which the outer conduct of the 
people was regulated in a ridiculous manner. A sailor returning 
to Boston from a three-years' voyage around the world kissed 
his wife on the front steps of their home. For this public dem- 
onstration of affection he was condemned to the pillory, that is, he had 
to stand in a public place with his head and hands locked through holes 
in two beams of wood, in the burning sun for many hours. For smaller 
offenses, like speaking saucily or a manifestation of unseemly mirth 
(they thought all mirth "unseemly"), the culprit's feet were thrust 
through holes in beams called the stocks, and fastened there for days 
and nights. 

The whipping post was often used. A woman who scolded too much 
was strapped into a chair at the end of a long beam beside a pond or 
the sea and plunged into the water 
until she was nearly drowned. They 
went only a step farther when they 



hanged a woman for a witch. Chil- 
dren of to-day should be thankful 
that they did not live in such cruel, 
solemn times. Young America goes 
to the other extreme nowadays. 
Children are not taught to show 
enough respect to their parents and 
older people. "Children should be 
seen and not heard" was an old 
precept. Now they are too often 
"heard" as well as "seen," and al- 
lowed to behave like unthinking ani- 
mals. There should be a "happy 
mean" between the solemn strict- 
ness of the Puritans and the absurd 
behavior allowed to-day. One rea- 
son that Liberty has progressed so 
slowly is because people want to go 
too fast and take liberties with Lib- 




f 



RoGEE Williams Taking Refuge Among 
Indians 



84 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



erty. 3^ii^t is the trouble with so-called socialists and anarchists. They 
go^oo fast, and trample on the rights of others in claiming what they 
c^U their own rights. 

1 Ever since its discovery America has been the land of Liberty, and the 
refuge of those who were driven from their own countries. Yet some 
who came to this country must have thought they had fallen "out of 
the frying-pan into the fire. ' ' Roger Williams was a Baptist. He had 
to leave Salem for that. He tried to find a place to stay with other col- 
onists. But being a Baptist was too great a crime. His white broth- 
ers could not bear to have a Baptist around. So he turned to the In- 
dians and they received him with open arms. In 1636 Roger Williams 
founded a colony and a city which he named Providence, which is now 
in the State of Rhode Island. Providence soon became the refuge of 
people who thought and believed a little differently from other people. 
A woman named Anne Hutchinson became too much of a teacher and 

preacher for Boston, She 
wielded too great an in- 
fluence, and Anne had to 
go to Providence. The 
Quakers came — and went 
to Providence. Some of 
them felt it their duty to 
come back and try to teach 
the Puritans to behave 
in a Christian manner. 
Those Quakers — women, 
too — were hanged on Bos- 
ton Common. It is said 
that a great Boston minis- 
ter was in favor of bring- 
ing a shipload of Quakers 
from Barbados and sell- 
ing them into slavery. If 
the Chinese, the Turks, or 
even the most savage and 
brutal tribes in the Dark 
Lord Baltimore Continent of Africa should 




THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



85 



try to treat American citizens as cruelly to-day as Boston treated the 
Quakers they would soon be punished by the United States Government. 

The Massachusetts Bay colony was not alone in its cruelty. The 
Church of England people in Virginia drove out the Roman Catholics, 
and they settled Baltimore, named for their leader, Lord Baltimore. 
Maryland was named for Henrietta 
Maria, wife of Charles the First, 
the Catholic queen of England. 

The longest step toward Liberty 
during the colonial period was that 
taken by William Penn and the So- 
ciety of Friends in Pennsylvania. 
Penn's father was an English ad- 
miral. King Charles the Second 
owed the Admiral sixteen thousand 
pounds (about eighty thousand dol- 
lars) which was paid by giving his 
son William a large district in Amer- 
ica. Because this territory was a 
vast forest, William Penn wanted to 
call it Sylvania, but the King named 
it Pennsylvania, or ''Penn's 
Woods." William Penn had left the court and joined the Society of 
Friends, or followers of George Fox, who believed in living at peace with 
all men. The Friends were called Quakers because they often said men 
ought to ' ' quake, ' ' or shake with fear at the very thought of the wrath of 
God. 

William Penn and a colony of Friends came to settle in Pennsyl- 
vania in 1682. Everybody laughed at the idea of the Quakers having to 
live among the Indians, for the savages were quarrelsome and would 
take advantage of the Quakers who believed it was better to die than 
to fight. The Friends would find chances enough to die when the In- 
dians found out that they would not fight. The idea of ruling Indians 
by love and kindness — people said that was a funny notion! Penn 
founded a city which he named Philadelphia, "Brotherly Love," and he 
soon arranged a meeting with the Indians under an elm near the village. 
Here he made a treaty or bargain with the red men. Though all Penn- 




WiLLiAM Penn 



86 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



sylvania belonged to him by right of purchase and grant from the Brit- 
ish crown, lie bought the country again of the Indians, giving them ar- 
ticles of real value, instead of cheating them with glass beads and such 
cheap things. The Indians gave Penn a wampum belt, showing a white 
man and a red man clasping hands. Penn made a speech telling how 
friendly he and his people felt toward the Indians, and they replied 
saying : 




William Penn 's House 



''We will live in peace with Penn and his children as long as the sun 
and moon endure. ' ' 

This pledge was kept for eighty years, because the Friends had re- 
gard for the rights of the red men. When a case came up in which an 
Indian was involved, they had a trial by a jury of six Indians as well 
as six white men. Instead of hanging or driving away people of differ- 
ent religious faiths, Penn invited such to come and settle in Pennsyl- 
vania. A colony of Germans came, at his request, and settled 



88 THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 

Germantown, a few miles north of Philadelphia. From these Germans, 
and others who settled in different parts of the State, have come the 
so-called "Pennsylvania Dutch," a thrifty, cleanly, kindly, law-abiding 
people who have done much toward making Pennsylvania the "Key- 
stone State." 

William Penn's children and grandchildren were not noble in heart 
and mind like the founder of Pennsylvania. They lost sight of every- 
thing but the money their great inheritance would yield them. They 
lived in England and refused to do anything to protect or develop their 
vast estates. They were called the "proprietaries." They were al- 
most, if not quite, as stupid and arrogant as the kings of England and 
the governors they sent to represent them in the American colonies. 
When Benjamin Franklin was sent to England in behalf of the colony 
of Pennsylvania it was to confer with the grandsons of William Penn 
as much as with King George of England. 

Probably if the English government had treated the American colo- 
nists with due consideration there would never have been a war for in- 
dependence. But the governors who were sent to America were usually 
incapable and insulting. They acted badly toward the people and told 
false stories about the colonies to the English ministers, so that the 
people were misunderstood at court. The first settlers had come to the 
new world to escape injustice, so, when they were treated more unjustly 
by the government than the king's subjects in England, they were natur- 
ally indignant. England was in great trouble with the rest of Europe 
and had to wage a number of expensive wars with neighboring nations. 
In order to pay for these, in addition to maintaining the government 
and an extravagant court. Great Britain taxed her subjects very heavily. 

To raise all this money the Stamp Act was passed, requiring the 
Americans to put a certain stamp on every document, and to pay a heavy 
tax on many of the necessaries of life. As the colonies in America were 
not allowed to have anything to say in the British Parliament about the 
wars they were asked to help pay for, or, indeed, about the taxes them- 
selves, they were very angry and refused to pay them. The tax col- 
lectors were mobbed and had a hard time trying to collect the unjust 
and burdensome revenues. The Americans ordered no silks, satins, 
laces, cloths, or other articles usually brought from England. Men, 
women and children dressed in homespun. The Stamp Law raised such 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



89 



a storm of indignation in America that the English government was 
forced to repeal, or take back, the law. No doubt, if Mother England 
had said to her daughter across the ocean: ''I have had some very ex- 
pensive wars and would like to have you help your poor old mother 
pay for them," the colonial children would have turned in and helped 
her. But England treated her children like slaves and demanded help 




THE 



NUMB 



IPENNSYLVANIA JOURNAL; 

AN D 

WEEKLY ADVERTISER. 



EXP I R 1 N G : In Hopes of a RafccErection to LlTE a^ ai ri. 



am forry to be 
obliged to ac- 
quaint my read- 
ers that as the 
Stamp Act is 
feared to be obligatory 
upon us after the firff. of 
November ensuing (The 
Fatal To-morrow), The 
publif her of this paper, un- 
able to bear the Burthen, 
has thought it expedient 
to Cop awhile, in order to 



deliberate, whether any 
methods can be found to 
elude the chains forged for 
us, and efcape the infup- 
portable f lavery, which it 
is hoped, from the laft 
representation now made 
againft that act, may be 
effected. Mean while I 
muft earneftly Requeft 
every individual of my 
Subfcribers, many of 
whom have been long be- 



hind Hand, that they 
would immediately dif- 
charge their refpective 
Arrears, that I may be 
able, not only to fupport 
myfelf during the" Inter- 
val, but be better prepar- 
ed to proceed again with 
this Paper whenever an 
opening for that purpofe 
appears, which I hope 
will be foon. 
WILLIAM BRADFORD. 



Newspaper Announcing the Death op Liberty 



in such a disagreeable way that the daughter became obstinate and re- 
fused to assist her at all. 

In repealing the Stamp Act England left a small tax or ''three pence 
a pound on tea," thinking this would be so small that the colonists woul(^'^ 
be glad to pay it, after such heavy taxes had been repealed. But the 
people of America said, ''No; 'in for a penny in for a pound'! It is the 
principle we object to. We refuse to pay even a small tax without 



90 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



representation in the government that levies that tax. To pay three- 
pence a pound on tea would be admitting Great Britain's right to tax 
us, and what would then prevent her increasing the amount or taxing 
other things we want!" 

The British government, however, did not seem to see the use of such 
close reasoning and allowed shiploads of tea to be sent to the chief ports 
of America. At Charleston, South Carolina, the tea was unloaded and 
stored in damp cellars where it would spoil. In Philadelphia and New 
York, the tea ships were not permitted to be unloaded, but were returned, 

as they were to England. In 
Boston, indignation meetings 
were held, and a band of men, 
dressed as Indians, went on 
board the ships waiting in the 
harbor to be unloaded, broke 
open the chests of tea, and 
emptied them into the water, 
saying by this act : 

' ' There, Mother England, 
you may have your tea when 
it's steeped enough!" 

This was the ''Boston Tea 
Party." 

This was a bold act on the 
l)art of Paul Revere and others 
of the Society known as ''the 
Sons of Liberty." The feel- 
ing against England had 
been growing and deepening for many years. Samuel Adams, 
John Adams, James Otis, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, John Han- 
cock and many others had been speaking against the tyranny and op- 
pression of England. Benjamin Franklin was perhaps earlier than 
all of them, and George Washington came to the front when an army 
needed a commander. 

Franklin had been postmaster general of the colonies and had gone 
up and down the country in his official capacity. He was the best known 
man of his day in America, if not in the whole world. His inventions 




Dr. Benjamin Franklin 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



91 



and his almanacs, with their quaint maxims of ''Poor Richard," had 
made all classes in many lands familiar with the name of Doctor Frank- 
lin. As a delegate to the first Continental Congress he originated a flag 
showing a snake 
cut in sections 
separated. n 
each piece was 
the name of a 
colony. Under it 
was the legend, 
"Unite or Die." 

Franklin had 
been a kind of 
postmaster gen- 
eral in the French 
and Indian War. 
He had tried, 
with young 
George Washing- 
ton, to influence 
General B r a d - 
dock, the British 
commander, t o 
fight the French 
and Indians in 
the right way, 
but, with true 
British arro- 
gance, Braddock 
scorned their ad- 
vice, and he and 
nearly all his sol- 
diers were 

slaughtered at Fort Duquesne, now Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Wash- 
ington was then twenty-three years of age, and one of Braddock 's aides. 
He became a leader in the military affairs of the colonies. He was also 
elected a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, the first elected 




Patrick Henry's Great Speech 



'm^r 



92 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



legislature in America. It was before this heroic body that Patrick 
Henry made the great speech ending with the words, "Give me liberty 
or give me death ! ' ' This speech rang like a war cry among the thirteen 
colonies. A Continental Congress was elected and met in Carpenter 
Hall in the city of Philadelphia. Here petitions were drawn up and 
sent to the King of England. But George the Third, besides being a 

stupid monarch, had 
bad advisers. It was 
stated that the minister 
who had charge of the 
atfairs of the colonies 
could not even find the 
principal American 
cities on the map ! 

The Boston Tea 
Party made the British 
government very indig- 
nant. The Massachu- 
setts charter was re- 
voked and the port of 
Boston was ordered 
closed. Regiments of 
' ' redcoats ' ' were sent 
from England to take 
charge of Boston. The 
people called the sol- . 
diers in red uniforms 
"lobster backs." The 
British started the sing- 
ing of "Yankee Doo- 
dle" in derision, but 
song. The Sons of 
of Minute Men, who 




Pulling Down the Statue of King George 



the colonists adopted it as a sort of war 

Liberty and other organized companies 

were to be ready at a moment's notice, like a volunteer fire company, 

were formed. Paul Revere was busy riding to and from Boston, New 

York and Philadelphia with messages and notices of meetings of the 

different colonies. The men we are now proud to call patriots were 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 93 

tlien known as traitors and ringleaders in rebellion. The Britisli took 
possession of Boston and drove out the patriots. A price was set upon 
the heads of Hancock, Adams, and other leaders in the Continental 
Congress. 

When the Grand Union Flag was raised over the army quarters, Janu- 
ary 1, 1776, it was the standard of the United Colonies. There were 
thirteen red and white stripes, as there are in the flag of the United 
States now, but instead of stars in the blue field in the corner, there 
were the English Crosses, showing that the thirteen colonies were United 
only to obtain their common rights from the British government. If 
King George and his ministers had been disposed to treat the English 
subjects in America with ordinary decency it is not likely that there 
would have been a war. But the king sent governors to America who 
inflamed the wrath of the people. A company of loyal Virginia plant- 
ers once asked for aid in founding a college in their colony, for young 
men, like Washington, who could not attend school in England. These 
planters were treated so badly that one of them remarked that men in 
Virginia had souls as well as Englishmen. This was the curt and in- 
sulting reply : 

' ' Oh hang your souls ! Go and raise tobacco. ' ' 

After the delegates from the different colonies began to meet, events 
transpired rapidly. Washington was not one of the speakers, but for 
knowledge and counsel, he was said to be the most important man in 
the Congress. He had made an impassioned speech in the Virginia 
House of Burgesses in which he stated in his great indignation over the 
way the Mother Country was treating Massachusetts — in closing the 
port of Boston, because of the Tea Party — that he would be willing to 
equip and maintain an army of one thousand men at his own expense 
and lead them to relieve blockaded Boston. Most of the other colonies 
sent aid and provisions to sustain Boston in her hour of great trial. The 
battle of Lexington and Concord, on April 19, 1775, roused the colo- 
nies to a white heat of rage and sympathy. In less than two months 
an army had gathered, and Colonel Washington of Virgina was elected 
its commander-in-chief. 

During all this time the people did not think of separating from the 
Mother Country. The Mother Country seemed to regard America 
merely as a market for English products. This attitude, shown through 



9^ 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



many years, became irksome to the colonists, who had had a taste of 
freedom. The governors, many of them, treated the people in a most 
unreasonable and arrogant way. King George, instead of heeding the 
warnings contained in the petitions sent by the Continental Congress, 
issued a "speech" which was proclaimed in Boston on the day .the flag 




Taking the Oath of Allegiance 



of the United Colonies was raised in Cambridge. This pompons proc- 
lamation showed such a lack of understanding of the rights of the people 
of America that they began to see that the only way to secure the liber- 
ties and rights of Englishmen would be to separate from such a govern- 
ment and help themselves. 

Not all the patriots of those early days remained as loyal and judicial 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 95 

through all the years from the French and Indian war to the days of 
the beginning of American Liberty as did brave Colonel George 
Washington. 

One of the earliest and most vigorous responses to the oppressions 
of the L.amp Act and the revenue collectors came from Captain Abra- 
ham Whipple of Providence, Rhode Island. As captain of a small 
ship bearing the appropriate name of the Gamecock he captured twenty- 
three French merchant vessels, during the French and Indian war. On 
one of Whipple's cruises to the West Indies his little ship was caught 
in a gale and it became necessary to throw overboard the guns and 
heaviest cannon balls. Just after this a huge French ship hove in sight. 
Too much disabled to cope with such an enemy, Whipple resorted to 
stratagem. He cut up a spar into short lengths, painted them black like 
cannon and stuck them out at the porthole. He ordered the men to put 
their caps on the ends of handspikes and set them up to look like crews 
all ready to fire the guns. With this harmless equipment, Whipple 
bore boldly down upon the French j;)rivateer, which put about and soon 
sailed out of sight. 

Captain Whipple was soon given charge of a company of eighty vol- 
unteers who went out in rowboats to the Gaspee, a British revenue ship. 
He announced that he had come to arrest Lieutenant Duddington, 
boarded the Gaspee, took Duddington and his men prisoners and burned 
the obnoxious craft to the water's edge. The cool daring of this act 
enraged the British. Captain Wallace, who commanded another Brit- 
ish ship, wrote to Captain Whipple as follows: 

Yon, Abraham Whipple, on the 17th day of Jnne, 1772, bnrned his Majesty's vessel, 
the Gaspee, and I will hang you at yard's arm. 

Whipple's reply was characteristic : 

To Sir James Wallace, Sir: 

Always catch a man before you hang him. 

The day that Washington was elected commander-in-chief of the 
Continental Army, Rhode Island purchased two sloops, the Providence 
and a smaller ship, and placed Abraham Whipple in charge of them 
to drive the British fleet out of Narragansett Bay. He did this effectu- 



96 THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 

ally with his little fleet. Abraham Whipple fired the first shot on the 
sea in the Revolution. He was recognized by the new government of 
the United States before John Paul Jones and thus became the first 
commodore of the American Navy. Commodore Whipple's many dar- 
ing exploits placed him beside Paul Jones as a Revolutionary hero. It 
is a curious fortune of war that his brave deeds have been so seldom 
mentioned. It is sometimes stated that Whipple was in command of the 
disguised Indians of the Boston Tea Party, but he had nothing to do 
with that escapade. He conducted an exploit which required much more 
heroism and shrewdness. This was the passing of the British blockad- 
ing fleet off the coast of Rhode Island, in 1778, carrying important des- 
patches to France. He chose a stormy night in April for this danger- 
ous undertaking. Commanding his little ship, the Providence, he hurled 
a defiant broadside at the British fleet as he passed through its lines. 
With a voice stronger than the gale, he gave loud commands to his men 
which confused the British, but he ordered the very opposite tactics in 
lower tones to his men. So the Providence escaped to France with his 
despatches to Dr. Franklin, John Adams and Arthur Lee, the American 
commissioners in Paris, who finally succeeded in enlisting the aid of the 
French for the American war for independence. 

It was a strange looking navy of which Abraham Wliipple was the 
first commodore. At his own expense he furnished uniforms for his 
crews. With the little Providence he patrolled the coast to defend the 
struggling commerce of the colonies against many and larger British 
ships. While in Massachusetts Bay he was ordered to intercept a fleet 
of one hundred and fifty vessels bound for the West Indies. Pretend- 
ing to be a Halifax trader, he joined the fleet and by separating several 
ships every night from the rest, under the cover of darkness, he took 
possession of ten large vessels which he convoyed into Boston Harbor 
in triumph. These ships, laden with food and provisions, afforded great 
relief to the blockaded and nearly starving colony. His prize was val- 
ued at more than a million dollars. 

In 1779 Commodore AVliipple sailed under sealed orders to the aid of 
General Lincoln at Charleston, South Carolina. But the struggle was 
too unequal even for Abraham Whipple. Their combined land and 
sea forces were too feeble to make much impression on the eighty-five 
thousand men on the British side. Whipple was more brave than wise. 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



97 



**His not to reason why." He and liis small crews were soon swallowed 
up in the general disaster to the Americans at Charleston, while Wash- 
ington was bound to his post watching New York City, far away to the 
north. Whipple and his men were held prisoners of war until they were 
exchanged after the heroic struggle for independence was won. While 
held a prisoner, in painful inaction. Commodore 'WHiipple was forced 
to look on and see large, well-equipped French fleets doing the work in 
aid of Washington, Greene and Lafaj^ette that he would have given so 
gladly and well if he had had even half as many ships and men to work 
with. But the dauntless captain 
spent no time in repining. His men 
were ill and suffering. From his 
private purse he took a house, fitted 
it up as a hospital and maintained it 
for the benefit of the men of his 
command. 

Long after the war was over he 
was forced to accept a small pension 
— about as much as a private sol- 
dier receives to-day. The redoubt- 
able commodore died in Marietta, 
Ohio, after the beginning of the Sec- 
ond War with Great Britain. Here 
is part of a quaint tablet placed 
upon his tomb : 

''Sacred to the Memory of Com- 
modore Abraham Whipj^le, whose 
fame, skill and courage will ever re- 
main the boast of his Country. In the long Revolution he was first on 
the seas to hurl defiance at Proud Britain and there to wave the Star 
Spangled Banner." 

But it was John Paul Jones who raised the first flag of the Revolution. 
This was a yellow banner with a rattlesnake coiled at the roots of a 
liberty tree, above which was written ' ' An Appeal to Heaven, ' ' and be- 
neath it, ''Don't Tread on Me." This navy flag was raised even before 
Washington's Flag of the United Colonies broke forth in the breezes 
at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on New Year's Day, 1776. 

y—The Story of the Liberty Bell. 




John Paul Jones 



98 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



In union is strength. When the colonies came together and compared 
notes the idea of independence grew rapidly. Thomas Jefferson, who 
wrote the Declaration of Independence, afterward said of the sentiments 
of the colonists : 



„ miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiliiillliiiiiiiil^ iiiiiiiiifc, 




Opening the First Congress 

Before the 19th of April, 1775, I had never heard a whisper of a disposition to 
separate from the Mother Country. 

Washington went still further in saying : 



When I first took command of the army (July 3, 1775), I abhorred the idea of inde- 
pendence, but I am now fully convinced that nothing else will save us. 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 99 

After the Continental Congress met in the State House (now known 
as Independence Hall), Philadelphia, the feeling grew stronger and 
stronger for liberty. The work of many years of James Otis, Patrick 
Henry, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel and John Adams and many other 
burning patriots was now rapidly bearing fruit. The colonial dele- 
gates were terribly in earnest. Yet a boyish spirit of playfulness pre- 
vailed. This alone seemed to relieve the terrific intensity of the meet- 
ings. Benjamin Harrison, the big, bluff, jolly man, whose son and 
great-grandson long afterwards became President of the United States, 
was a candidate for president of the Continental Congress. But little, 
neat, well-dressed John Hancock, the merchant prince of Boston, was 
elected. The giant Harrison, to show his good will, picked up little 
John Hancock in his fat arms, carried him to the chair of the presiding 
officer and seated him there amid the cheers and applause of the "most 
potent, grave and reverend seignors" who composed that illustrious 
body. That men are but '*boys of larger growth" was never better il- 
lustrated than in the immortal Congress that brought forth the Declara- 
tion of Independence. 

It was George Washington's boyhood friend, Richard Henry Lee, of 
Virginia, who arose on the 17th of June and gravely read the following : 

Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and inde- 
pendent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and 
that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought 
to be, totally dissolved. 

That it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for forming 
foreign alliances. 

That a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective colonies 
for their consideration and approbation. 

These resolutions were eloquently seconded by John Adams of Massa- 
chusetts. The names of the mover and seconder of these resolutions 
were omitted from the records of the Congress. This was wise, for 
every leader in the movement for liberty was a marked man in Eng- 
land, fie was declared an outlaw and an arch-traitor, and a price was 
set upon his head. 

Richard Henry Lee's son was then in school in England. An Eng- 
lish gentleman, who, in spite of all precautions for secrecy, had learned 
of Lee's motion, and putting his hand on young Lee's head said: "We 



100 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



shall yet see your father's head on Tower Till." Tower Hill was the 
British place for beheading traitors. The boy, true son of a brave 
father, promptly replied : ' ' You may have it when you can get it. ' ' 
After a brief discussion of Richard Henry Lee's resolutions it was 

Resolved, that the consideration of them be deferred until to-morrow morning, and 
that the members be enjoined to attend punctually at ten o'clock, in order to take the 
same into consideration. 

The next day, Saturday, June 8, the discussion began promptly. It 
was continued, with bitter opposition, all that day and resumed on Mon- 
day the 10th. One delegate 
who opposed the resolutions 
declared that there was no 
reason for passing them ex- 
cept ^'the reason of every 
madman," just for the sake 
of making "a show of 
spirit. ' ' 

John Adams made a great 
speech in favor of the reso- 
lutions. 

On Monday, June 10, ac- 
tion upon Lee's resolutions 
was postponed until three 
weeks from that day. Mr. 
Lee had to go home on ac- 

V/^y^^^Z^Y I ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ illness of his 

__/____^ I wife. As journeys were 
^*** — -^ I made on those days, on 
horseback, or in coaches, he 
missed the discussion of his own resolutions. 

On Tuesday, June 11, a committee was appointed to prepare a state- 
ment of the case for the colonies. This statement was afterwards named 
the Declaration of Independence. This committee was composed of 
Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin 
Franklin of Pennsylvania, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, and Robert 
R. Livingston of New York. Thomas Jefferson, as chairman of the com- 




102 THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 

mittee, was requested to write out an appropriate statement. Jeffer- 
son was staying in a brick house, out in an open field, only a short dis- 
tance from the meeting place of the Congress. The report of this com- 
mittee, written by its chairman, became the immortal Declaration of 
Independence, one of the four great documents of history. 

The three weeks were up on July 1, that year, when the report of 
the committee was read and the discussion was resumed. The resolu- 
tions were passed in triumph on July 4, and signed on that day 
by the President and Secretary of the Congress. John Hancock, though 
a small man, wrote a big, strong hand. He is said to have remarked 
when he wrote his name, "There! King George can see that without 
spectacles." When big, fat Benjamin Harrison signed his name he 
said to Elbridge Gerry, who was a small, thin man, "You will be kick- 
ing in the air long after I am dead." The men knew that if they did 
not succeed in their struggle for independence they would all be hanged 
as traitors. Dr. Benjamin Franklin humorously remarked, while he 
and others were signing their names : 

"We must all hang together or assuredly we must all hang separately." 

Such was the spirit of the fathers who planned large liberties for 
their grateful children. 

As the sessions were held for a secret discussion the Liberty Bell was 
not rung nor was the Declaration of Independence read to the people 
until July 8. At this time John Adams, "the father of Inde- 
pendence" wrote home to his wife, in Braintree. near Boston, the fol- 
lowing true prophecy : 

Yesterday the greatest q;:estion was decided that was ever debated in America; and 
a greater, perhaps, never was nor never will be decided among men. The (fourth) 
day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am 
apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anni- 
versary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn 
acts of devotion to Almighty God. It ought to be solemnized with pompous parade, 
with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of the 
continent to the other, from this time forward, forevermore. 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 103 

FALSE FREEDOM AND TRUE LIBERTY 

They bawl for freedom in their senseless mood, 
And still revolt when truth would set them free, — 
License they mean when they cry Liberty. 

— Milton. 

SLAVERY was mentioned in the draft of the Declaration of In- 
dependence reported to the Continental Congress as **a pirati- 
cal warfare against human nature itself. ' ' This clause was left 
out of the Declaration, and omitted later from the Constitution 
of the United States. Thus many concessions had to be made in order 
to induce the people of all the thirteen colonies by vote, to adopt it. After 
the War for Independence was over the people of the colonies went back 
to their homes and began to look upon the other colonies as rivals if not 
enemies. They were soon quarreling and in danger of going to war 
among themselves. Washington, Franklin and young Alexander Hamil- 
ton were among the strongest bonds that bound the thirteen colonies 
together. 

The States did not become really United States until the Constitu- 
tion was adopted by them all and Washington was made President. The 
last public acts of both Franklin and Washington were for the purpose 
of doing away with slavery. In fact. Congress itself began to take 
measures toward this result, and slavery would have died a natural and 
easy death but for the invention, in 1793, of the cotton gin, a machine for 
picking out the many tiny seeds from the fluffy balls of ripened cotton. 
Usually a great invention helps along the cause of Liberty in some way 
or other, but the cotton gin made the chains of black slavery stronger 
and heavier than ever. This was because one slave, working with the 
cotton gin, could take the seeds out of more cotton in one day than a 
hundred slaves could pick out with their fingers alone. This made 
slave labor far more valuable and their Southern masters, the planters, 
became many times wealthier than before. It made Southern lands im- 
mensely valuable for the raising of cotton. It is easy for people to 
believe what they wish, and people too often wish to believe an^ihing is 
right which will put money in their pockets. So, gradually, many of the 
people in the South learned to think of slavery as a thing ordered of 
God. The people of the North have no right to blame them for this, 



104 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



for when New England's pocket-book was interested, tlirougli its cotton 
spinning and weaving industries, abolitionists were mobbed in the 
streets of Boston. Had cotton been a northern product the responsi- 
bility for slavery might have been reversed. 

Although Cornwallis surrendered to Washington in October, 1781, 
and a treaty of peace was signed two years later between England and 
the United States, at Paris, in 1783, the English could not understand 
that the American people were actually free. British men-of-war kept 
overhauling American vessels of all kinds, impressing or forcing sail- 
ors and other men to work and fight England 's battles on English ships. 
This of itself was a form of slavery, and the United States protested 
repeatedly against it, but England paid no attention to these protests. 
Meanwhile the French people began their great struggle for ' ' Liberty, 
Equality, Fraternity." As France had aided the United States in gain- 
ing freedom, the French, of course, expected independent America to 
turn in and help France in her struggles. France professed to have 
the greatest admiration for all things American and to be following in 
the footsteps of the United States on the highway to Liberty. Thomas 
Jefferson, Washington's Secretary of State, was inclined to agree with 
the French and would have involved the newly formed government of 
the United States in a foreign war but for the cool-headedness of George 
Washington. His true ear detected the false ring in the popular clamor 

for Liberty in France. He knew that 
Liberty was not what the French people 
really wanted, but the license, or reckless- 
ness, of an unruly mob. Although many 
Americans became enraged at Washington, 
and claimed that for the United States to 
draw back and refuse to help France would 
be mean and ungrateful, he remained firm. 
The way the French treated Lafayette, 
that true lover of Liberty, proved to Wash- 
ington that it was not Liberty the French 
people were striving for. They had been 
oppressed by extravagant courts led by 
French monarchs from the days of Louis 
Lafayette XIII down to the Reign of Terror. 




106 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



Louis XIV had given expression to two ideas which proved 
that he realized that the people would rise up in their fury 
against the nobility and destroy the sovereign himself. Louis on one 
occasion said, when some one spoke of the interests of the State, "The 
State — that's I!" At another time he said of the future of France, 
"After me, the deluge!" After he died there came a deluge of blood 
and it was called the French Revolution. 

The people murdered the nobles and beheaded the royal family merely 




French Eevolutionists 



because they belonged to higher ranks of society. They murdered and 
guillotined one another, and the Reign of Terror and of blood continued 
until Napoleon came and found one of the public squares of Paris filled 
with a howling mob. He ordered cannon fired into the seething mass of 
people and drove them out of the square. Even Madame Roland, a 
heroine and a true lover of Liberty, was sent to the guillotine by a group 
of men who pretended to be working for "Liberty, Equality and Fra- 
ternity." Just before she was beheaded she exclaimed, sadly: 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



107 



"0 Liberty, Liberty! how many crimes are committed in thy 
name ! ' ' 

Lafayette was confined in one prison and his wife in another. While 
James Monroe represented the United States as minister to Paris, 
Mrs. Monroe went, one day, to call upon Madame de Lafayette in 
a great gloomy prison of Paris. Madame de Lafayette had been 
marked for execution that very afternoon, but so great was the respect 
of the French for American Liberty that they released her instead of 
sending her to the guillotine. 

There were heroes from other countries who came to America to 
serve an apprenticeship to Liberty in the land of the free. One of these 
was Kosciusko, the Polish patriot, who fought bravely and sturdily 
against Russia and the other countries which divided struggling Poland 
among them as they had no right to do. Campbell described the death 
of Kosciusko in the following lines : 

Hope for a season bade the world farewell 
And Freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell. 

Pulaski, another lover of freedom, died in battle in America, and 
Garibaldi, the Italian hero, spent years as a candle maker on Staten 
Island, in New York Harbor. No one born in America can begin to 
comprehend what true liberty means 
to those who have suffered for the 
cause of liberty in other lands. 
Napoleon followed the Reign of 
Terror in France and, in conquering 
Europe, he promised certain liber- 
ties to some of the conquered na- 
tion. But Napoleon did not ''make 
men free" in Europe. He did 
something for American freedom 
by selling the French possessions in 
America to the United States in 
1803. This was called by Ameri- 
cans the Lousiana Purchase, Na- 
poleon did this not for Liberty's 
sake, but to raise money for his own Pulaski 




108 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



wars and to make the United States a more powerful rival of England, 
the ancient enemy of France. When Napoleon was meeting his fate at 
Waterloo the War of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain 
was being fought, in which America at last convinced the Mother Coun- 
try that she must keep her hands entirely off the affairs of her daughter 
over the sea. Though this war gained America her freedom from 
other nations, she was far from free, for she still permitted slavery 
within her borders. 

This slavery made slaves not only of the black race but even of the 




First Eailavay Train 



white masters, whose principles were enslaved by their pocketbooks. 
The hand of barbarism lay heavy upon the shoulders of men both 
North and South. Freedom of opinion was muzzled and freedom of 
conscience was gagged, either through self-interest or fear. This state 
of affairs developed heroes and martyrs, and a literature throbbing with 
a passion for freedom. William Lloyd Garrison started his little paper, 
the *' Liberator," in Boston, in 1836. He lived to see the black slaves set 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



109 




The Birthplace of Lincoln 



free. Elijah Love joy was murdered in Alton, Illinois, because he exer- 
cised the right of free speech in his paper. 

The invention of the steamboat, the railroad, the sewing machine, the 
reaper, the telegraph and telephone, have all tended to the extension 
of freedom in the earth.. It now seems strange that the United States 
was the last of civilized nations to free the slaves within he;: borders 
after even Russia, usually believed 
to be two centuries behind the 
march of European civilization, had 
set the serfs free by a single ukase 
or proclamation from the emperor. 
But the negroes belonged to another 
race of people and the Americans 
seemed to think black men could not 
have the same right as white 
men. 

The cause of Liberty had to wait 
for the rising of another man who 
should finish the work begun by Washington and the fathers. The 
man was Abraham Lincoln. As Washington was the ''father," Lincoln 
became the ''savior" of his country. Lincoln was able to do all this 
because his heart was right and his own mind was free. He could not 
bear to see anyone's rights interfered with. Angry tears came into 
his eyes when he, as a little boy, saw some wicked fellows putting live 
coals on the back of a mud-turtle. He snatched the shingle away from 
the largest boy and began to punish him for his cruelty. His 
first school "composition" was about "cruelty to animals." He stated 
in this that "an ant's life is as sweet to it as ours is to us." He believed 
that birds and beasts had a right to live and have Liberty. His religion 
was that of love to all men and even to the lower animals. 

Abraham Lincoln showed by his actions that 

He prayeth well who loveth well 
Both man and bird and beast. 

His whole life illustrated his own saying: "With malice toward none; 
with charity for all." 

Abraham Lincoln was the "knight of the Nineteenth Century." His 



110 THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 

chivalry was far in advance of that of Richard Lion-Heart. Richard 
was brave and kind to those of his own rank in life. But he was cruel 
not only to his enemies but to the poor and oppressed. Richard, like 
Alexander the Great, never learned to control himself. Even the Black 
Prince, beloved of all the people and a favorite in history, was self-in- 
dulgent and cruel. After all the ages of knighthood and chivalry, it 
remains for Abraham Lincoln to show the world a true knight "with- 
out fear and without reproach, ' ' because he had moral as well as physi- 
cal courage. In all his love of mankind and his exalted heroism Presi- 
dent Lincoln really represented the high advancement of the people of 
the United States along the grand highway of freedom. 

If the people had not believed in Lincoln and with him — that is, if they 
had not believed as he did, they would never have made him President. 
So, when he, as ruler of the whole United States, proclaimed freedom to 
all the people in the country on New Year's Day, 1863, he announced 
freedom to many more than the four millions of black slaves in the United 
States. It meant Liberty to all the white people in that they were at 
last willing to give the same liberty to others which they claimed as their 
own right. This is why Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation is one 
of the four great documents of Liberty — the others being the Magna 
Charta, the Compact in the "Mayflower," and the Declaration of 
Independence. 

There is yet another great step to be taken in the way of Liberty, 
and that is, a doing away of war. The United States has taken its 
proud place in the foremost ranks of freedom by becoming a leader and 
guide in the paths of peace. As people have been learning that dueling 
between men is not the true way to settle differences or questions of 
honor, so with war, which is only dueling between nations. The time is 
coming when men will gaze in wonder upon cannon and swords and other 
implements of warfare as relics of barbarism, just as we now look upon 
racks and thumb screws and the implements of torture once used by men 
to make others think as they did. 

When Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation an- 
nouncing true freedom to all the white people as well as the blacks of 
the United States of America, he was simply echoing the prophecy in- 
scribed on the Liberty Bell: "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the 
land unto all the inhabitants thereof." 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



111 




THE STORY OF THE BELL ITSELF 

Ring out the old, ring in the new ! 
Ring out the false, ring in the true ! 

— Tennyson. 

Ring, ring for Liberty ! 

— Brown. 

THERE are many larger bells in the world than the Liberty Bell 
of Independence Hall, in Philadelphia, but no bell in all history 
has come to mean so much to the world. It is only twelve feet 
around its rim and seven and a half feet around its crown — 
a small bell as bells go nowadays, but how much sorrow and struggle 
and heroism and happiness the Liberty Bell represents! It was or- 
dered by the Assembly of the Province of Pennsylvania in 1751, twenty- 
five years before the Declaration of Independence, through Robert 
Charles, the agent of that Province in London. It was to be cast by 
Thomas Lester of London, to weigh about two thousand pounds, and to 
have in it, ''well shaped," in large raised letters, the following inscrip- 
tions : 
X Proclaim Liberty Throughout All. the Land Unto All the In- 
habitants Thereof, Leviticus XXV, V, X., and 

BY ORDER OF THE ASSEMBLY OF THE PROVINCE OF 
PENNSYLVANIA FOR THE STATE HOUSE IN PHILADELPHIA. 
The Bell was modeled after one cast by King Henry III, son of King 
John of England, about the year 1250, in memory of Edward the Con- 
fessor, a pious Saxon king who lived several hundred years before that. 



112 THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 

The original bell was named ''St. Edward" and Imng in the clock tower 
of Westminster, London, but the people called it "Great Tom of West- 
minster. ' ' 

The bright new Bell, with its Scripture verse and other inscriptions, 
arrived from England in the good ship "Matilda," in August, 1752. 
It was hung early in September that year and the first time it was rung 
"without any violence whatever — it cracked!" This was a great dis- 
appointment. At first the people were undecided what to do about it. 
It would take a long time to send the cracked new bell back to Thomas 
Lester in London and have it melted down and cast again. So they 
decided to have it recast by "two ingenious workmen" named Pass and 
Stow, bell founders of Philadelphia. These men melted the English 
bell and added an ounce and a half of copper to the pound to make the 
metal less brittle. They made it the same shape as before, with the same 
Bible inscription, but, of course, put their names in place of the London 
founders. But when the American bell was hung, there was a certain 
want of clearness in its tone, probably because too much copper had 
been added, so the ingenious Pass and Stow asked permission to cast it 
once more. As the mold had been preserved this was not difficult. ^ 

The third bell was hung in the steeple of the State House of the Prov- 
ince, in June, 1753. Still many people did not like the sound of the bell, 
because nearly everyone thought nothing could be done quite so well in 
America as in England. So another bell was ordered from Lester, but 
when it came, after a long delay, it was no better than, if as good as, the 
American Bell. It is not known what became of this second English 
bell, but it was probably melted and made over into a number of smaller 
bells. 

So the Bell which first called together the loyal Assembly of the Eng- 
lish Province of Pennsylvania, August 27, 1753, had been cast by 
Americans and was destined to "proclaim Liberty throughout the land" 
twenty-five years after it was ordered with that prophetic inscription. 
Yet it began very soon to be the Liberty Bell. When England sent word 
to the colonies just what laws to make the Bell was rung to show that 
the Provincial Assembly "would not make laws by direction." This 
was in May, 1755. On February 3, 1757, the Bell rang when "Mr. 
Franklin" was sent "home to England" to see if something could be 
done to induce the English Government to show a little regard for the 




8— The Story of the Liberty Bell. 



114 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



rights of the American Colonies. On September 9, 1765, the Bell 
called the Assembly together to arrange for a Congress of all the Colo- 
nies, Less than a month later, on October 5, the Bell was "muffled and 
tolled" when the British ship, the "Royal Charlotte," arrived in Phila- 
delphia with the hated stamps provided by the English Government in 
accordance with the Stamp Act which so roused the indignation of the 
American Colonies. The stamps were not permitted to be unloaded, 

but were sent back to Eng- 
land on a British man-of- 
war. Nearly four weeks 
later, on October 31, the Bell 
was muffled and tolled all 
day long when the enforcing 
of the unjust Stamp Law 
was begun in America, 
Some of the people spent 
that day in their houses 
' ' mourning the death of Lib- 
erty," while others indig- 
nantly burned hateful 
stamped papers in a Phila- 
delphia restaurant known 
as the London Coffee House, 
The Bell called the people 
together on April 25, 1768, 
to protest against the Acts 
of Parliament which were 
intended to stop planing 
mills and other lumber mills 
and to put an end to the 
manufacture of iron and steel in Pennsylvania, The king had ordered 
his arrow affixed to pine trees, claiming them as his own. This prob- 
ably led to the adoption of the pine tree as an emblem of Liberty on 
colonial flags, sometimes with the rattlesnake coiled about its trunk, 
and oftener with "An Appeal to Heaven" lettered above or below the 
pine tree, which was sometimes called the "Liberty Tree," 

On July 30, the same year, the Bell called together a meeting of the 




Franklin in the House of Lords 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



115 



people in the State House yard to make the statement that * * the Parlia- 
ment of Great Britain has reduced men here to the level of slaves." 

December 27, 1773, shortly after the Boston *'Tea Party," the Bell 
called together the largest and most indignant mass meeting ever seen 
up to that time about the State House. The ship "Polly" was then com- 
ing up the Delaware river loaded with taxed tea and other things from 
England. The angry people voted then and there not to permit the 
** Polly" to land her cargo. They appointed a committee to send the 
captain and the consignee with the tea from the Arch Street wharf, 
where it was about to land, back to its ' ' old Rotterdam place in Laden- 
hall Street, London." Not content with sending a committee, the citi- 
zens generally went down to see that the tea was not unloaded, having 
said in the mass meeting that they would not have "the detestable tea 
funneled down 
their throats with 
Parliament's duty 
mixed with it, ' ' and 
that "no power on 
earth had the right 
to tax them with- 
out their consent." 

After the "In- 
dians" had thrown 
overboard the tea 
in Boston harbor, 
the English Gov- 
er'svment closed the 
nort of Boston. So 
Ihe Bell was muf- 
fled and tolled 
again when this 
was announced, on 
June 1, 1774, and 
on the 18th of the 
same month it 
called a meeting to 
express the pec- Draptino the declaration op Independence 




116 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



pie's sympathy with the Boston sufferers. The Friends, or Quakers, 
of Philadelphia, who did not believe in war, subscribed $12,700 in gold, 
and other people contributed $10,000 more, besides eleven hundred and 
sixty barrels of flour, and collected from the Southern States one hun- 
dred hogsheads of sugar and one thousand barrels of rice, all of which 
did much to save the shut-off city of Boston from starving as the British 

Government intended. 

On April 25, 1775, six 
days after the battle of 
Lexington and Concord, 
the Bell called together a 
great meeting at which 
eight thousand citizens 
pledged themselves to the 
cause of Liberty. 

As the discussions of the 
Continental Congress 
which adopted the Decla- 
ration of Independence 
had been held in secret 
sessions, the Bell did not 
ring for Liberty until the 
Declaration was formally 
read on July 8, 1776. 

On July 4, 1777, the Bell 
rang in the first anniver- 
sary of the Declaration of 
Independence. It a n- 
nounced the surrender 
of Cornwallis in October, 
1781, and welcomed General and Mrs. Washington to Philadelphia 
during the month following that great victory. In 1873 the Bell 
rang again to proclaim the signing of the treaty of peace which had been 
signed by Dr. Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Arthur Lee at 
Paris. This treaty formally ended the war. In December, 1799, the 
Bell tolled during the funeral solemnities in memory of Washington. 
In 1824 the Bell welcomed Lafayette to the city. 




Thomas Jefferson 




Signing the Treaty of Peace with England 



ir 



118 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



On the Fourth of July, 1826, the Bell rang joyously to commemorate 
the "year of jubilee" mentioned in the verse of Leviticus from which 
the motto of the Bell was taken. It was fifty years that day from the 
signing of the Declaration of Independence. On that day Jefferson, 
who wrote the Declaration, and John Adams a prime mover of it, died 
in their homes in Virginia and Massachusetts. The Bell tolled in honor 

of those two great patriots and Presi- 
dents, on July 24, 1826. On July 21, 
1 834, the Bell tolled in memory of Lafay- 
ette, who had recently passed away in 
his native France. It is claimed by 
.some that the Bell was cracked while 
tolling for this great French patriot and 
Iriend of freedom. Others say that it 
(Tacked while being violently rung as a 
tire alarm; but authorities generally 
agree that its voice was heard for the last 
lime during the funeral of Chief Justice 
John Marshall, on July 8, 1835. Mar- 
shall was the last of the giants and 
friends of the heroes of the Revolution. 
It seemed right and proper that the Bell 
should be silent now that the voices of those who labored long and 
well in the holy cause of Liberty were heard no more in Independence 
Hall. Though the old Bell is now silent, it is more eloquent than ever 
in behalf of freedom, as 

The silent organ loudest chants 
The master's requiem. 

The Bell has made several journeys. The first was to save it from 
destruction or sacrilege. When the British took possession of Phila- 
delphia, in September, 1777, just before the battle of Germantown, the 
Bell was taken down from the belfry over the State House, now called 
Independence Hall, and carried away in a train of seven hundred wag- 
ons, guarded by two hundred Virginia and North Carolina soldiers, to 
Allentown, Pa., by way of Germantown and Bethlehem. The wagon 
on which it was conveyed broke down in Bethlehem on September 29th. 




John Marshall 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



119 




The Liberty Bell 



The Liberty Bell found a lodging place, like the Ark of Covenant in 
olden times. It was safely kept in Zion's Church, Allentown, until 
after the British left Philadelphia, when it was restored to its steeple, 
June 27, 1778. 

After it lost its voice one attempt was made to make it ring clearly 
again. It was finally taken down and placed in a 
glass case in the entry of Independence Hall. 

The first of the Bell's journeys as a silent teacher 
and example of patriotism was to the New Orleans 
Exposition, in January, 1885. 

It was on exhibition in the Pennsylvania Build- 
ing at the World's Columbian Exposition at 
Chicago, in 1893. 

It went South to the Exposition in Atlanta, 
Georgia, in 1895. It made the southern journey 
again in 1902, to the Exposition at Charleston, 
South Carolina. The following year the Bell went 
north and its hoarse voice was heard on Bunker Hill, on the one hun- 
dred and twenty-eighth anniversary of that early battle for independ- 
ence. In 1904 it was taken to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at 
St. Louis. 

Everywhere, while on a journey, the Liberty Bell is received with en- 
thusiasm by old and young. It is crowned with garlands and affection- 
ately kissed by school children, while many tears well up in the eyes of 
the older people who know more of the long, hard, sad story of Liberty. 
Of course, none now recollect the days when its voice rang out clear and 
strong, but there are many who remember the days of the later struggle 
for freedom, when Abraham Lincoln stood in front of Independence 
Hall on Washington's Birthday, 1861, and raised the Flag above the 
Bell, saying, with reference to the principles laid down by the fathers 
in the Declaration of Independence, that if the Union could not be saved 
upon those pure principles he would rather be assassinated on that spot 
than jro on with the struggle. It was then that Lincoln communed with 
Washington, and the spirit of '76 met the spirit of '61 in the presence 
of the great Bell of Liberty. 

It rang for liberty, and round the world 

The great notes traveled, and the hearts of men 



120 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 



Wakened and learned, and having learned, 

They loved the now mute messenger whose mission was 

To tell the world that Liberty means love. 

And love of man for man makes nations free. 

Who can describe the immortal scene wlien ciie Bell began to ''pro- 
claim liberty throughout the land unto ail the inhabitants thereof "I It 
was when John Nixon, 



with a clear, strong voice, 
stood out on the platform 
commanding what is now 
called Independence 
Square. The place was 
filled with people — a vari- 
egated throng, relieved 
now and then by the gray 
garb of the Quaker. From 
the iron-barred windows 
overlooking the square 
many prisoners listened to 
the proclamation of Lib- 
erty. Some were Tories, 
or people who did not be- 
lieve in independence. 

In the throng stood a 
man with a stern face, 
lighted by a single eye, 
for the other had been put 
out when, as a little boy, 
he was playing upon the 
shore of his native France, 
near Bordeaux. He had landed in Philadelphia only six weeks before, 
driven up the Delaware by the British blockade. Though a French- 
man of five and twenty, he was fervent in his devotion to the cause of 
Liberty. He took the oath of allegiance and became a citizen of the 
new-born republic as soon as it was possible to do so. That young man 
was Stephen Girard, who afterward styled himself "Mariner and Mer- 
chant." He could have added Hero and Patriot. He proved himself 




Stephen Girard — from an Old Painting 



122 THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 

to be both during the yellow fever epidemic in 1793, when nearly every 
native born citizen fled the city, many deserting wives, parents and chil- 
dren in the terror which prevailed, and the Government had to be re- 
moved to Germantown. Stephen Girard and Peter Helm, two foreign 
born patriots, risked their lives and stood by, caring for the sick, com- 
forting the dying, and burying the dead. 

In the second war for independence, the War of 1812, Stephen Girard, 
then the richest man in the United States, offered his whole fortune to 
the United States Government, if necessary, to save the liberties of the 
country of his adoption. 

Charles Brockden Brown has left a good description of the scene that 
day, though he takes a poet's liberties with the dates and facts. The 
old bellman was Andrew McNair, who had rung the Bell during those 
troubled times for eighteen years. This is part of the poem: 

THE LIBERTY BELL 

There was a tumult in the city, 

In the quaint old Quaker town, 
And the streets were rife with people 

Pacing restless up and down — 
People gathering at the corners, 

Where they whispered each to each, 
And the sweat stood on their temples 

With the earnestness of speech. 



As the bleak Atlantic currents 

Lash the wild Newfoundland shore, 
So they beat against the State House, 

So they surged against the door, 
And the mingling of their voices 

Made a harmony profound, 
Till the quiet street of Chestnut 

Was all turbulent with sound. 



So they surged against the State House 

While all solemnly inside 
Sat the Continental Congress, 

Truth and reason for their guide. 



THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 123 

O'er a simple scroll debating 

Which, though simple it might be, 
Yet should shake the cliffs of England 

With the thunders of the free. 



Far aloft in that high steeple 

Sat the bellman, old and gray, 
He was weary of the tyrant 

And his iron-sceptered sway. 
So he sat with one hand ready 

On the clapper of the bell 
When his eye should catch the signal 

The long-expected news to tell. 



See! see! the dense crowd quivers 

Through all its lengthy line 
As the boy beside the portal 

Hastens forth to give the sign; 
With his little hands uplifted. 

Breezes dallying with his hair, — 
Hark! with high, clear intonation 

Breaks his young voice on the air. 



Hushed the people's swelling murmur 

Whilst the boy cries joyously — 
"Ring!" he shouts. "Ring, Grandpa, 

Ring, oh, ring for Liberty!" 
Quickly at the given signal 

The old bellman lifts his hand. 
Forth he sends the good news, making 

Iron music through the land. 



How they shouted! What rejoicing! 

How the old Bell shook the air 
Till the clang of Freedom ruffled 

The calmly gliding Delaware! 
How the bonfires and the torches 

Lighted up the night's repose. 
And from the flames, like fabled Phoenix, 

Our glorious Liberty arose! 



124 THE STORY OF THE LIBERTY BELL 

That old State House Bell is silent, 

Hushed is now its clamorous tongue, 
But the spirit it awakened 

Still is living — ever young; 
And when we greet the smiling sunlight 

On the Fourth of each July, 
We will ne'er forget the bellman 

Who, betwixt the earth and sky, 
Rang out loudly "Independence !" 

Which, please God, shall never die! 



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